


The First Shadow

by SirCatherine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse of Angelic Grace (Supernatural), All the Historical stuff is pure background for setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ancient History, Ancient Rome, Angel Soul Bonds (Supernatural), Angel Wings, Angelic Grace Kink (Supernatural), Artistic Liberties, BAMF Dean Winchester, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Bottoming from the Top, But before the Book of the Damned, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel (Supernatural) Has Self-Worth Issues, Castiel Has Feelings for Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel's Past, Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Dean Winchester Has Feelings For Castiel, Dean Winchester Has Trust Issues, Dean Winchester in Denial, Enochian-Speaking Castiel (Supernatural), Enochian-Speaking Dean Winchester, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Bottoming, His Grace Gets Messed Up, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Castiel (Supernatural), Love Confessions, M/M, Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Original Angelic Lore, Praise Kink, Pre-Memory Alteration Cas is a BAMF, Protective Dean Winchester, Psychological Torture, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester is a Saint, Season/Series 10, Set after Metatron goes to Angel Jail, Sharing of Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester, Suprise Archangel Appearance, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester, Tortured Castiel (Supernatural), seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2020-04-11 11:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirCatherine/pseuds/SirCatherine
Summary: **EDIT**The story has taken on a life of its own so I have changed around some of the tags! Take a look for some hints about what is to come!In the beginning, when God first sparked light into the lower realm, a creature was born from the first shadow cast. Forgotten and left devoid of God’s light, it began to covet it, to crave it, and then, in an attempt to complete itself, it began to consume it.The First Shadow; a biblical boogeyman used to scare young fledglings who strayed from God's will. It was just a myth, that is until angels begin to disappear by the dozens from a newly reorganized Heaven. When her investigation turns up nothing, Hannah, desperate to keep the dwindling number of her brethren safe, enlists the help of Castiel and the Winchesters. They're on the case! However, when the trenchcoat-clad seraph is the next to go missing, it's a race against time to find him before the scary story becomes deadly truth.





	1. Chapter 1

The Impala was on track back to the bunker after an overnight salt and burn two states over. It had been a welcome if short-lived reprieve carved out amongst all the crazy shit that had been going down lately. The sleek car was a streak of glossy ink and polished chrome as it breezed down the empty highway. With just over an hour left before they hit Lebanon’s city limits, Dean tapped his thumb leisurely against the steering wheel to the quiet beat on the radio while Sam dozed in the passenger seat.

The sky stretching out from horizon line to horizon line was just about as grey and dull as the road in between, but despite the hazy overcast, the air was balmy enough to leave the windows down. Somewhere between Colorado Springs and Burlington, Dean’s usual layers had begun to stifle him and he’d shed his jacket and his flannel. It left him in just his favorite band tee whose lettering and imagery were so timeworn they could scarcely be made out, but whose fabric was comfortably soft in a way only years of wear and washing could warrant.

As the last few notes of the previous song dissolved into the gentle whir of the tape rolling in the cassette player, the first twangy notes of Ramblin’ Man had Dean relaxing back into his seat. The flow of the humid air over his skin accompanied by the music and white noise of tires rolling over pavement was enough to lull the hunter into a state closer to peace than he had been in weeks--hell, months.

Even the itch of the Mark and it’s ever-present murderous whispers in the back of his mind, seemed strangely muted.

Halfway through the song, Dean's eye slid over to his snoozing brother after a particularly loud snore drew his attention, silently amused by the general dishevelment that came along with sleeping in moving vehicles. His shoulders were drawn up close to his ears. His arms were snuggly crossed with his head lulled to the side and propped against his own discarded canvas coat where it was wedged snuggly between the headrest and the door panel. The majority of his stupid long hair was tucked behind the side of his face smooshed against the makeshift pillow, but a fair bit of wind loosened locks billowed endearingly around the open window.

He’d heckle the younger hunter later for the drool dribbling from the corner of his slack mouth, but for now, Dean’s lips curled into a crooked little smile as he turned his attention back to the road. It was almost perfect, but something was missing.

 _Someone_ was missing.

With his mind comfortably hazy, Dean wasn’t aware his thoughts had shifted until they stir up an image of Castiel stretched lazily across the back seat, propped up against his own bundled up trench coat, tie loose and shirt cuffs folded and pushed up his forearms in an attempt to relieve the humidity. Another easy smile bows Dean’s lips, this one crinkling at the corners of his eyes, leaving his brows wistfully lax. He knew the angel didn’t require it, but it didn’t stop his brain from conjuring up this vision of his sleep softened edges to replace his typical stoney seriousness. 

Dean’s breath caught before stuttering back just a bit quicker, but he played it off as though the heat was beginning to get to him despite the warmth on his skin having nothing to do with the temperature. He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, eyes flickering over to his brother, ensuring he was still fast asleep before exhaling one long sigh through his nose and sinking once again against the seat.

He allowed the image of the sleeping Cas to come back to him, but the details had changed just slightly. In this heat, Dean imagined the white dress shirt sweat-damp and clinging to the angel's torso expanding and relaxing in the even rhythm of sleep. He imagined unruly dark hair tousled from the open windows and dark lashes trembling against heat-flushed cheeks, supple chapped lips parting just slightly around soft sighs and hums as he dreamed.

Dean inhaled sharply and promptly shoved the image out of his mind, refocusing on the road. 

This had been the game since Cas had stepped out of the motel bathroom after Purgatory. It had started innocently enough. The dude had been so filthy when they’d found him on the side of the road that Dean honestly hadn’t wanted him to get into the back seat for Baby’s sake. Of course, that momentary selfishness had been squashed by the overwhelming shock and relief that had come with finding the angel alive despite all the odds. Silhouetted against the bathroom light, freshly shaven, clothing clean and smelling like crisp soap and steam, the thought had just popped into Dean's head; Castiel was a damn handsome guy.

It had surprised him but the hunter had chalked it up to whiplash and moved on. Cas had gone from grungey vagabond to angel of the lord in less than twenty minutes; _anyone_ would have thought the same thing. It should have ended right then and there, but nothing was ever so simple for Dean Winchester. Everything in his life had a knack for being unfairly complicated and confusing. After that first time, it started happening _everytime_. Cas bowed over a book, his eyes intensely focused and scanning page after page with impossible speed; distracting. Cas speaking soothingly, voice plaintive and understanding, to a prospective witness; endearing. Cas growling threats at a demon caught in a devil’s trap, his jaw set, his shoulders back; exciting.

Cas tossing that quirk of a smile his way after a bad joke; tempting.

Sometime afterward, he wasn’t sure exactly when it started, it turned out that Cas didn’t even have to be there for Dean to think such things about him. In fact, it became a daily occurrence that the angel would pop into his mind with words like those swirling around him but Dean ignored it, for the most part, pretending it was normal for a guy to casually think his best friend was attractive, charming or...tempting...and stowed away any form of objection to the contrary. 

It had escalated from there. Now, for the better part of the last few months, Dean had been playing at the edges of thoughts and fantasies that he definitely could not justify any man having about their best friend, but still quickly stifled them before they crossed the line he’d drawn from himself. Okay, sure _maybe_ he could think about Cas a bit more than he probably should but it didn't mean anything so long as everything stayed platonic. He could justify thinking about wrapping his arms around the angel, he’d actually done just that on a number of occasions, but if fantasy Dean's hands began to wonder, he’d force the thought away. He could envision the angel poofing into his personal space, but quickly found something to distract himself if the imaginary Cas leaned in too close for comfort.

Then there were times like now when he imagined Cas innocently disheveled and unaware with soft features and softer lips parted and waiting...and begging...

Yeah. No. Definitely not going there.

Now thoroughly flustered and beyond mortified that he couldn’t control these sorts of thoughts even with his freaking brother sleeping mere feet from him, Dean was startled by a sudden prickling sensation that spidered up the back of his skull. It was one that he’d learned to associate with being watched or followed, so the hunter instantly became hyper-aware of his surroundings. His eyes automatically flashed up to check the rearview mirror, half expecting to see a car speeding up behind him. 

He nearly swerved off the road when instead he found a pair of piercing blue eyes staring back at him.

Cursing vehemently, Dean yanked hard at the wheel to keep the car from veering into the deep runoff ditch but drastically overcompensated in his panic sending the impala careening into the oncoming lane. Thank Christ they had been the only ones on this backwoods stretch for the last twenty miles. With a screech of the tires, he wrenched the wheel back again before planting his foot hard on the breaks. An instant later, Baby came to a lurching halt after skidding noisily over the loose gravel and grass of the road shoulder. Sharp twin lines of inky black skid marks become visible as the road dust cleared, stretching out behind the car for nearly three yards.

The smell of burnt rubber and freshly disturbed dirt is heavy in the humid air.

Sam, who moments before had become a fully alert flurry of long flailing limbs during the initial swerve toward the ditch, now clung white-knuckled to the ‘oh shit’ handle above the passenger door. His other massive hand was pressed with stiffly splayed fingers against the dash, bracing him against the screeching stop. With his chest still heaving he whipped his head to the side, his tousled hair sticking up in every direction, both from the rush of air through the open windows and the sudden violent movements of the car, and pinned his brother with an epically scathing and scandalized bitch face.

“What the hell Dean?!” He squawked indignantly, voice still rough with sleep.

Dean snapped his head to the side, his own hands still caught in a death grip around the steering wheel. “Don’t ‘what the hell’ me!” he barked defensively, prying one hand free to angrily jerk a shaking thumb at the backseat, “What the hell _him_!”

Sam pivoted, fully expecting to see some backwoods psycho in a pickup truck through the rear window, but floundered when his slightly manic glare fell on Castiel who was seated dead center in the backseat with one hand gripping the bench seat and the other planted firmly against the roof. His eyes were wide, his hair a bit more chaotic than usual, but otherwise seemed nonplussed by the reactions his sudden appearance had caused.

He greeted them with his standard flat tone, “Hello Sam. Dean.”

“What the hell Cas?!” Sam reiterated, gesticulating wildly toward the road and fields on either side of the car. “You can’t just zap into the car like that! We could have ended up in a ditch, or hit a tree or another car!”

“My apologies,” the angel replied contritely, but his expression shifted from apologetic to earnest urgency a moment later. “But I needed to speak to you both immediately.”

“You have a phone!" Dean snapped, throwing his hands up and hissed something that sounded like ‘freaking angels’ under his breath. The shift from blissfully relaxed to the sudden overload of adrenaline was bad enough, but the thoughts he’d been jolted from were what made him refuse to look at said angel while he attempted to bring his hammering heartbeat back down to a normal pace. Those ocean eyes in the rearview mirror had jump-started more than just his heart, and he dropped the hand that had still been clinging to the steering wheel down to adjust his jeans, thankful that his brother was distracted enough speaking to the angel to notice. 

While still obviously jarred from his sudden lurch into consciousness, Sam responded to what Cas had actually said. “What’s so important that you couldn’t call or wait 'till we stopped Cas?” Sam demanded as he threaded his fingers through his hair to untangle the chin length strands and flatten the wild fly-aways.

While Dean kept his head defiantly facing forward with his hands fisted tightly against his jeans and posture tense with frustration, Castiel could see his eyes dart back up to the mirror in a show that he _was_ paying attention despite his upset. Their eyes locked in the reflection and for just a breath Dean observed some sort of tension in the angel’s posture before those crystalline irises shifted to the right to address Sam.

“Hannah contacted me,” Cas answered as he leaned forward and braced both hands on the lip of the bench seat. “She’s been dealing with some sort of situation in Heaven and has requested our presence to assist in an investigation.”

“Hannah?” Dean grated harshly, turning to face the angel for the first time, suspicion and resentment pinching his face into a bitter expression. “As in 'the angel who had the hots for you and told you to gank me to prove your loyalty to Heaven’?” A strange look flashed across the angel’s face at the mention of Hannah’s attraction to him, and Dean swallowed back an angry curse at the slip-up. He could feel Sam’s eyes on him too but refused to look at him. Instead, Dean did what he always did; doubled down and got angry. "The one who went over to Metatron's side?!"

“Yes, that Hannah,” Cas affirmed after a moment.

“Why the hell would we help her?” Dean spat back harsher than was really necessary, but the Mark had ignited when he’d chosen to roll with the anger thing, so he couldn’t have backed down even if he’d wanted. “I thought she hated our guts for, what was it she said--? Oh yeah, ‘ruining your judgment’.”

Cas inclined his head slightly, drawing his brows together. The corner of his mouth sunk down into a slight scowl. Dean’s anger, as usual, was vibrant and confusing but considering the Mark, the angel refused to allow the harshness of his friend's tone to get under his skin.

“She is an angel Dean, she doesn’t ‘hate’. She was justifiably concerned about my loyalties while I was in a leadership role. From an angel’s perspective, my judgment _was_ ruined. Despite my intention to continue to aid my brethren however I can, you have been and will continue to be my priority.”

And just like that, the anger was doused. 

The rational part of Dean’s brain knew that when Cas said ‘you’ he meant both him and Sam as a unit, but that didn’t stop the heat from rushing to his face. He hid the flush of color by turning away with a scoff, but in his periphery, he could make out the slight movement of the telltale tilt of the angel’s head which indicated he hadn‘t been entirely successful.

The resounding silence after was impressively uncomfortable, but thankfully Sam came to the rescue, “Cas, you said that Hannah asked for us to help with an investigation? What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” the angel admitted with an annoyed huff, “She refused to give me any details over ‘angel radio’.” Though he didn’t physically indicate the quotes with his fingers, Sam could basically hear them in the brief pauses around the words. “However, Hannah would not reach out to me and you two by extension if it wasn't serious. Though she gave no verbal indication, I could sense her urgency which prompted me to find you as soon as possible.”

Sam took a moment to digest all of this new information, before turning to look at his brother, “So, what do you think? It could be something big if it’s got Hannah desperate enough to ask us for help. You up for another trip to Heaven?”

“Oh yeah sign me up,” the older hunter replied sardonically. “Because last time went just great. Can’t think of a better way to follow up a hunt than by taking a stroll through the feathered douche bag capital of the universe. ”

“She needs our help Dean,” Castiel denoted coolly.

“Yeah, she’s a real damsel in distress.” The hunter grumbled petulantly as he turned the key in the ignition.

Sam quirked a brow, his eyes shifting to Cas in a silent question. That was twice now his brother had made a grudging comment about Hannah. He almost sounded...jealous. For his part, Cas seemed to be just as confused as the younger hunter. He observed Dean’s moody profile for a moment before sitting back against the seat. He wanted to chalk up the wickedly intense energy that Dean seemed to be ebbing into the thick silence as the Mark acting up, but as Sam turned back around in his own seat, eyeing the older hunter sideways as he pulled back out onto the road, he couldn't help but feel like it was something else entirely.

“To the gate then, I guess,” Sam muttered with a little swirl of his finger.

A little less than an hour later, just as the sun had begun to dip in the sky, Dean pulled the Impala into a secluded spot just outside the park where the Heaven's gate sigil was hidden a sandbox. As the three men exited the car, Dean took note of the two children still ambling about on the brightly colored play structures. With dusk fast approaching, he could only assume that the unattended kids were in fact angels guarding the gate. When the brothers and Cas got near enough, the kid’s game of chase came to an abrupt halt and the pair, one dark-skinned boy of about fifteen and one knobby-kneed girl near twelve, turned in eerily perfect synchronicity to observe their approach.

“Now that’s just creepy,” Dean griped under his breath, letting Cas overtake him for the lead.

“Castiel,” the boy greeted somberly, his youthful timbre weirdly flat.

“Micah,” Cas replied in kind, “Hannah has--”

“We know,” Micah interrupted, “We were given orders to allow you and your companions to enter the portal.” The boy inclined his head at the girl beside him, “Muriel, give them the coins.”

The girl sauntered forward, extending her lanky arm first toward Sam who was closest to her and then to Dean just beyond him, dropping a large silver coin into each of their waiting palms. Sam, nerd that he was, immediately brought the piece of silver up to his face to examine the symbols etched on the surface. After a moment of inspection, his eyebrows lift in surprise, before his eyes jump over to Dean. 

“This is an Enochian shielding spell--a really powerful one.”

“It will allow you to pass through the portal without disintegrating on a molecular level.” The girl informed them.

Dean shuddered at the cognitive dissonance produced by the harsh clinical nature of her words coupled against the girlish tone of her voice. “Gee, thanks.” He mumbled, turning the coin over in his palm once, before pocketing it.

Without much further ado, Castiel stepped away from the brothers toward the sandbox where the portal’s sigil seemed to react to his presence, sparking to life in a dazzling swirl of white sand and brilliant heavenly light, but hesitated with one foot on the wooden border. He turned briefly to regard the brothers over his shoulder, casting them a tight rueful expression. 

“This journey will likely be...uncomfortable,” he warned them. “Humans were not made to physically enter heaven.”

“Well that’s just fan-freaking-tastic,” Dean retorted grimly, nervously fingering the coin in his pocket.

“Don’t be a baby Dean.” Sam quipped, he nudged his brother reassuringly with his shoulder.

“Bitch,” Dean muttered, eyeing Cas’s beige coated back as the angel stepped through the swirling light.

“Jerk,” Sam replied.

With a brief glance at one another, the brothers inhaled deeply, before stepping through the portal together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lemniscate is a ∞  
> Some lore about the angel OCs I have introduced here

Dean wasn’t exactly sure where it was that he’d been expecting to pop up after stepping through the light. Maybe something like last time, a familiar comforting place that was a bit too perfect to be the real thing. Rosey images of his mother and their home kitchen flashed across his mind. He could still feel the warmth of the morning sunshine filtering in through the kitchen windows. He could smell the pie cooking in the oven...

When he finally blinked open his eyes two things hit him in quick succession. First; surprise. He was staring at a stark white wall slotted with a row of equally stark white doors sporting golden numbers. They lined both sides of the hall as far as his eyes could see. Second; panic. He hadn’t caught sight of Sam or Cas immediately and for one long agonizing second, he thought he might have actually died from a dysfunctional magic coin. Heart racing, Dean’s attention darted around frantically before he finally turned around only to discover Cas standing directly behind him. Face to face with only a scant few inches separating them, Dean could count the shades of blue in his eyes...had there always been so many?

“Dean, are you alright?”

The angel’s gravelly timbre jump started Dean’s stalled out brain and he took a quick step back to put some much-needed distance between them. He could feel his face heat up but he ignored it in favor of passing by Cas to clap a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m fine.” He answered in a rush without looking at the angel. “What about you Samantha, how are you doing?”

The younger Winchester was dazed enough not to comment on the name. He squinted in the impossible brightness of the hallway but eventually was able to focus on his brother and Cas. “I think I’m good?” He replied, shaking his head briefly, “Cas was right. It was definitely uncomfortable.”

“Yeah,” Dean huffed out in a humorless laugh, “It felt like we got launched from some sort of weird holy slingshot. I thought I was gonna hurl all over the celestial plain.”

Cas shot the older hunter a disgusted look, his nose scrunching up at that very idea but it soon gave way to something like exasperation. “You’re both lower dimensional beings that were just rapidly transported to a higher dimensional realm at the speed of light.” The angel informed them calmly as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. “The fact that you’re still whole on an atomic level is...impressive. Those coins are very powerful.”

Dean could be wrong but it sounded to him as though Cas was _surprised_ the coins had worked so well. Oh hell no, they had not just been flung through interdimensional space on a hunch! He was about to unleash a tirade of expletives to describe exactly how he felt about that but was stopped short when a smooth voice with a clipped accent spoke up from directly beside his shoulder.

“I’m pleased that my spell work was to your liking, Castiel.”

Cursing loudly, Dean whirled back around, nearly toppling Sam over in his haste, glaring holes into the intruder. The slim lanky stranger who had spoken, along with a broader bearded companion, occupied the space between them and Cas which Dean was sure had been empty mere moments beforehand. They were both donned in matching pale grey suits, pristinely clean and sharply cut. _Freaking angels_ the hunter thought sourly. He had definitely reached his quota of feathered dicks scaring the shit out of him for the day.

The slim angel peered over at Dean just then, his dark eyes giving the hunter the vague impression of a shark. Somehow though, his expression seemed less predatory and more passively bored. It was his companion who mirrored the hunter’s glare back at him.

“Winchesters." The lanky angel greeted dully, “My name is Harut. I apologize for startling you. It’s been some time since I have interacted with humans, I forget your senses are--”

“Weak.” The bearded angel scoffed in a grating baritone.

“--Slow.” Harut finished as though his companion hadn’t spoken. “This ill-mannered golem is my brother, Marut. Hannah has given us the task of being your escort for the duration of your stay here."

“To make sure you don’t stick your nose into anything besides what you’ve been summoned here for,” Marut growled, shifting his glare pointedly to Cas. “ Heaven has reached a precarious state of order and it doesn’t need any more blunders.”

“Quite,” Harut huffed apathetically, “Now if you’re finished?” Marut inclined his head, clasping his hands in front of him, the muscles in his arms nearly bulging out of his suit coat, his pearlescent eyes settling cooly on his brother. Addressing their guests once again, Harut politely extended one hand toward the hallway behind Cas. “Hannah is expecting you so if you’ll follow me, we can get underway.”

Castiel is the first to move, stepping aside to allow the escorting angels to take the lead before falling in easily behind them. Sighing through his nose, Sam met his brother’s eyes with a slightly bewildered expression before offering an impassive shrug and turned to follow after Cas. For his part, Dean shoved his hands back into his pockets and took a moment to catalog his immediate surroundings one last time. His eyes scanned down the seemingly infinite expanse of hallway in the opposite direction before flitting back to the ‘door’ they had all stepped out of--number forty-two. He scowled at the number, his brain still having some trouble wrapping around exactly how he had gone from sandbox to doorway.

In his pocket, his fingers found the coin, worrying at it and feeling out the carved symbols on its cool surface. A strange sensation crept over him sending the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. It was emanating from his chest, resonating like the boom of fireworks or a deep baseline at a concert. _What the hell_...?

Cas’s words came back to him in a rush; _'Humans were not made to physically enter heaven’_. A shudder passed over the hunter. Rolling his shoulders to shake it off, he clutched the coin firmly in his pocket, but it only seemed to intensify the sensation, rooting him to the spot like a live wire. Another flash of memory, seemingly out of nowhere, jerked through him in terrifyingly vivid snapshots.

Glass shattering all around him.

Light sockets showering him with sparks. 

An ear-piercing screech simultaneously inside his head and outside.

“Dean, you coming!?”

The hunter’s head snapped to the side when his brother’s voice reached his ears. Without preamble, Dean shook off the prickle of apprehension that had seized him and withdrew his hand from the coin. With his attention elsewhere, the sensation dulled to a faint hum and he finally made a move to follow after his companions, trotting down the hall to make up for his delay.

“Everything okay?” Sam asked, eyeing his brother with thinly veiled concern as he fell into step beside him.

Dean scoffed, “Oh yeah, I'm fine. Just strolling through _Heaven_ without _vaporizing_ thanks to some _magic coins_ enchanted by an _angel_. You know, nothing out of the ordinary here."

“It is a lot to take in.” Sam conceded with a sigh.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Dean replied, pointedly ignoring the echo of sensation still tingling near his heart. “Hey, is it just me or does this place look a hell of a lot different than the last time we were here?”

Sam nodded in agreement, glancing at the numbered doors as they passed by on either side. “Yeah, I noticed that too. In all fairness though, last time we actually died.”

“Yeah thanks for the reminder,” Dean groused.

Sam rolled his eyes, “I mean we were just disembodied souls last time so maybe it’s got something to do with being here in the flesh?”

“That’s not entirely inaccurate,” Castiel interjected, slowing his pace to fall in line with the brothers so he could join their discussion without raising his voice. “Heaven itself has also undergone a massive rebuild. After the war ended and Metatron was imprisoned, the factions which had made up the Heavenly Host united under Hannah. Together, they recreated the structure of this dimension. I have to admit, despite it’s...sparsity...it is much more organized than when we first met. Each human’s paradise is tucked into its own space, much like files in a cabinet. But what you said Sam, about being here ‘in the flesh’, it has made this place change for you. The physical structure that you see--this hallway, these doors-- its a projection of your perception.”

“Woah, wait, what?” Dean blurted, his mind tripping over the unexpected mental gymnastics necessary to unpack that kind of statement. “Wanna run that one by me again?”

The angel gave an impatient huff, “Dean, you are a lower dimensional being in a--”

“Higher dimension, yeah you said that, but what does that actually mean?” Dean snapped with more than a little agitation, and tacked on, “in plain English,” just for good measure.

“It means,” Castiel retorted curtly, “That your brain is specifically calibrated to perceive three and four-dimensional space so that’s what you see.”

Thankfully Sam spoke up before Dean had a chance to get any more frustrated with the amount of energy he was wasting on trying to understand what the angel was telling him.  
“It’s kinda like the Matrix,” the younger Winchester interjected. “Our senses evolved for three and four dimensional reality right? But because we’ve ascended into a higher dimension that we couldn’t possibly recognize, our brains fill in the gaps with stuff that makes sense to us. Its the difference between seeing a recognizable image and seeing a bunch of ones and zeros.” He paused briefly, looking to Cas for affirmation. 

The angel inclined his chin with a small prideful smile--he understood that reference. 

Sam continued, “We’re walking down an infinite hallway, lined with infinite doors, but that’s only how we perceive it because that’s the only way our brains can make sense of it.”

Dean looked between his brother and Cas with a skeptical squint. They had to be conspiring to confuse him. He was sure Sam would break character at any moment and dissolve into a fit of giggles for having gotten his brother to go along with the 'Heaven is the Matrix' shpeal, but when both men remained resolute, the older hunter pinched at the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache he was sure was coming on.

“Jesus,” He grumbled. “I think this might actually be worse than last time.”

“It's not so bad.” Sam defused, “A lot to take in, sure, but not overwhelming.”

Dean snorted, “Speak for yourself.” Then, after a moment he seemed to collect himself enough to be a little curious. “So,” He began haltingly, “The stuff we experience here...it’s just going through a filter so we can understand it, or whatever?

The hesitant way he asked the question struck Cas a strange and he scanned the hunter’s face carefully for any sign that something was off, but as usual, Dean remained frustrating unreadable. Was Dean experiencing something beyond what Sam was? Could it be the Mark reacting to their location, or perhaps the coin was malfunctioning? Before he could open his mouth to voice any of these questions, Sam spoke up excitedly.

“Exactly!” the taller brother exclaimed, “You know, this is actually kind of awesome if you think about it!” A moment later he was jotting down notes in the tiny journal he usually kept in his inner coat pocket, never one to miss an opportunity to expand on the lore. “We see the hallway and doors because we’re human. We’re used to seeing stuff like that.” He paused briefly, pinning Cas with a look of genuine curiosity, “but Cas, you’re an angel. Do you see the ones and zeros like Neo?”

Still distracted by Dean’s odd behavior, Cas is momentarily confused by Sam’s question but seemed to consider it seriously for a second before deflating, “I don’t believe that your pop culture metaphor will work in my case, I’m sorry Sam. I don’t think I could describe what I perceive in a way that would make any sense to you.”

“Try?” Sam insisted.

Dean made a show of rolling his eyes at his nerd of a brother, but that didn‘t negate the spike of his own curiosity. The image of Cas dressed up in a long black trench coat with equally black sunglasses flashed across his mind before he shook it away.

No. Cas was not the 'Chosen One’. He was just an angel.

Yet, for the first time, likely since they had met in the barn all those years ago, Dean was struck by what that actually meant. So far as he had interacted with him, Cas had been on human turf; the real physical world where everything they ‘perceived’ was solid and familiar. Cas was Cas, the blue-eyed human-ish guy in the tax accountant getup, but Cas was also Castiel, a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. Never before had he wondered about how Cas perceived the world because to Dean, at least for the majority of the time down in their ‘lower dimension’, Cas was just a weird little dude who occasionally glowed with sexy angelic power.

_Badass_ Dean corrected himself swiftly, _He occationally glowed with badass angelic power._

Entirely sidestepping the fact that he’d just thought the word 'sexy’ in reference to his best friend, Dean let himself wonder about the real Castiel, the one he’d never seen who was supposedly the size of the Chrysler Building.

“Music.” Cas blurted suddenly, startling Dean out of his own head. “It’s like infinite, impossibly intricate layers of music, where each note is a perfect compliment to every other note.”

“Like a symphony?” Sam probed.

“Yes.” Cas agreed, only to tilt his head a fraction, his brow furrowing in concentration, “And no. It’s not like sound. At least not entirely and not in the way you would know sound. It’s an all-encompassing sense. There are no definitive borders. It’s a continuation. A flux.” He struggled for a word that Sam could understand but ended up falling on a word in Enochian.

Dean stared at the angel with poorly contained awe. “Uh, Cas. What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Enochian.” Sam supplied, flashing a confused look at his brother, “Dean, we’ve heard it lots of times.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas replied self consciously, averting his eyes. “I couldn’t think of another way to describe it. It roughly translates to something like...unified Being.”

“It kinda sounded like you were singing.” Dean marveled as if he hadn’t heard Cas speak, his ears still faintly buzzing from the strange resonance of the lyrical language. It was the same sort of internal vibration he had felt earlier only way less intense. “My ears are still ringing.”

Cas and Sam both shot astonished looks at the older hunter, but Sam was the first to speak. “Wow, really?” he inquired enthusiastically. “Mine aren't, what’s up with that? Cas, is that one of the perception things we were just talking about?”

“Perhaps,” Cas replied, eyeing Dean curiously, “I’ve spoken Enochian for spells back on earth, but we’re in Heaven now, and it is a powerful holy language. Even when speaking it phonetically with this vessel’s vocal cords, my true voice could potentially bleed through." Here Cas seemed to hesitate, his face flushing just enough for Dean to notice. “If that were the case, because of the bond we share, it’s within the realm of possibility that Dean could hear it.”

When Sam turned to fix a scrutinizing eye on his brother, Dean could feel his own face heat up, but before he had the chance to get defensive, Sam’s attention was back on Cas, his eyes twinkling with the same intrigue that they got when he’d run across a particularly interesting piece of lore. Sensing the slue of annoying questions that were coming, Dean fell back just a bit, watching his brother simultaneously jot down notes and verbally accost their friend, allowing his mind to wander once again. 

As he fell into his own thoughts, the swell of sensation in his chest returned along with a frustrating mixture of apprehension and...something else. Something that had been skittering around the edges of his psyche for months now. Something he refused to deal with beyond the vague acknowledgment of its existence.

Castiel.

He allowed himself to entertain that as-of-yet unnamed feeling for all of half a second before he promptly stuffed it way down deep in it’s designated ‘shit I don’t want to think about’ box filed next to every other messed up facet of his life. Heaven was definitely not the right place for his alarmingly uncontrollable urges and fantasies about his best friend, not least of all because it was _freaking Heaven_ , but more importantly, because lingering too long on it invited a metric shit ton of introspection he neither wanted nor was at all prepared for.

Instead, Dean steered his mind in a different direction, focusing on the weird vibration in his chest. Cas had said that because they were in Heaven, his true voice could potentially bleed through the holy language even though it was being spoken phonetically through his vessel. Dean thought back several years to recall the first time he had heard that ‘true voice’. He willed back the impulse to grimace; it wasn’t a pleasant memory.

To start with, he’d been brought back from the dead. Awesome but also a fuck of an adjustment considering he’d just come out of a forty-year stint in hell, not to mention he’d had clawed his way out of his own grave. Another impulse to wince was squashed but he couldn’t control the tension in his jaw and felt the muscle beneath his ear jump. To say that he hadn’t been running on all cylinders was an understatement. Yet, despite everything that had been threatening to tear apart his sanity at the time, it had been that voice which had snapped him out of it. The shrill, piercing shriek had been like the screech of feedback from a microphone, but so much more.

Dean had felt it like a physical force running in a current through his body as though he had completed some sort of angelic power circuit. It had intensified so quickly and so powerfully that there was no doubt in his mind that if it had gone on even just a second longer, he would have shattered along with every window, light bulb and piece of glassware within a half-mile radius.

Back then, it had been overwhelming and terrifying with the echo of it lingering with him for days afterward. Though he had heard things similar since then, for whatever reason only that one time with Cas produced the magnitude of the sensory overload that had occurred that day.

Dean remained only peripherally aware of Sam still eagerly prattling away, steered from all the confusing perception and reality talk by the potential of brushing up on Enochian, so the older hunter took advantage of the distraction his brother was providing to study Cas’s profile. The angel seemed to be oblivious while he attempted to explain the Enochian phonetic alphabet. Cas spoke with single syllabic sounds and Sam clumsily parroted them back, but it was only Cas’s voice that held the duel tone that apparently only Dean could hear. Each echo was like a pebble tossed in water, sending a gentle cascade of ripples through his being.

It was beautiful.

Dean bulked in revulsion at the schmaltzy thought. Jesus, he sounded like a damn chick. Cas was Cas, a _dude_ , and an _angel_. He had badass--not sexy-- angel powers and, okay, maybe he was kinda good-looking but he was not _beautiful._ The image of Cas with that hint of pink dusting his cheeks flashed uninhibited across his mind accompanied by his explanation: _Because of the bond we share, it’s within the realm of possibility that Dean could hear it._

The bond they shared...

Dean was so far gone in his own head that he hadn‘t noticed his companions come to a halt until he collided solidly with Castiel’s side. His brother and all three angels gave him identical strange looks as he scrambled back with a stammered, “Sorry Cas.”

“We’re here,” Harut stated with one fine brow arched as his eyes flicked between Castiel and the oldest Winchester. The indicated door was identical to all of the other doors that they had passed, the only difference being a lemniscate taking the place of a number. With a nod, Castiel took the lead, twisting the knob and crossing the threshold with the Winchester brothers at his heels.


	3. Chapter 3

The room on the other side of the door was a large office of a modern style. Everything from the carpet, to a potted plant in the corner, leaves and all, was sleek stark white just like everything else they had encountered thus far. On the left, instead of another solid side of the room, there was a single massive pane of glass spanning the entire length of the wall giving the illusion of the room opening up into thin air. Beyond the glass looked to Dean to be a shifting mass of shimmering pastel colors, similar to clouds but more viscous. The rolling surface refracted light in a way that reminded him of an oil spill but it hurt his eyes to linger on, so he shifted instead to the matter at hand. 

At the far end of the office opposite them, Hannah, who had stood in greeting upon their entrance, now gestured to the three identical white chairs in front of her desk. Cas took the far left seat, Sam the far right, which left Dean to suffer the center, facing Hannah directly. He made a valiant attempt, he really did, to keep the scowl off his face, but judging by the flicker of impatience on her own, he hadn’t succeeded.

“Hannah.” Castiel greeted her with a nod.

“Castiel,” She replied with a gentle affection that made Dean’s stomach tighten unpleasantly. Her eyes traveled over to Sam, “Welcome Sam...Dean.” The older Winchester’s name fell flatly in her voice, distaste clear in her tone despite her expression of neutral professionalism. “Thank you for coming. I hope Harut’s charms are performing their function adequately. I realize your previous experience in Heaven was unpleasant.”

Along with being one of way too many memories Dean had of his own death--really it was starting to become a problem--his brief stint in Heaven had been a catalyst to a whole cascade of emotions and realizations which had left him wounded beyond the buckshot he'd taken in the chest to get there. While his injuries had long since been healed, leaving no trace of that instance of death on his body, the damage to his heart and mind had left a scar that ached even now, so many years later. Running for his life from fanatical angels who wanted his meat suit to fulfill a world-ending prophecy, reliving invasively personal moments from a life he barely remembered and let’s not forget discovering that one of his brother’s heavenly paradise moments had been walking out on his family--on Dean himself.

The hunter’s expression was coldly blank and he met Hannah's gaze unflinchingly. The tension in the air around him was palpable. “Try nightmarish,” he growled. “So just get to the goddamned point already.”

Both Cas and Sam sat up a bit straighter, exchanging looks of identical concern. They had grown used to identifying the signs of the Mark’s influence when the older hunter was most vulnerable to it and now was no different. The blank expression, the hard eyes, the tense body language; it wasn’t so dissimilar to how Dean normally handled himself under stress, but the gruff vibrato and the snark were absent and in its place, the eerie stillness and calm he’d exuded while a demon.

“I should be grateful that you’d wish to get straight to business,” Hannah replied curtly, though whether she was simply unphased by Dean's aggression or wisely complicate in the face of it, was a mystery. She took her seat without further delay. “Very well. I’ve asked the three of you here because there have been a string of disappearances over the last four days, and we have not been able to discover why or how it’s been happening despite our best efforts.”

“Disappearances?” Cas asked leaning forward, clearly not expecting that explanation. “You’re saying that some angels have gone missing?”

“Yes.” 

“Have you ruled out desertion?” Dean piped up, “I seem to remember you not being too keen on the angels who wanted to stay on earth. Maybe some of the ones you ‘convinced’ started having second thoughts?”

Hannah narrowed her eyes at the hunter, her expression darkening. “Not possible” She replied coolly. 

“How can you be sure?” Cas threw back in Dean’s defense. It came out a bit harsher than he intended but he had sensed how the hunter’s hackles had raised in reaction to the unfair dismissal. Along with not wanting to further incur the influence of the Mark, Cas didn’t care for Hannah’s attitude when she’d been the one to summon them there. “Dean makes a fair point. With your reaction to the rogue angels on earth, it’s not a stretch to assume that some of the more independent thinkers might have begun doubting you.”

Hannah appeared suitably contrite after Castiel’s reprimand but doubled down on her previous assertion. “I am aware now that my methods were perhaps a bit medieval--”

“A bit,” Dean grumbled.

“--However,” She continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “Our preliminary investigation revealed that, aside from those who have gone missing, all of the angels in my charge are accounted for and they assure me that none their missing brethren had been of the mindset that you’re suggesting.”

“They could be lying.” Dean challenged, “To protect their friends. Hell, to cover their own asses.”

“They have no reason to lie.” Hannah snapped back, “Besides, the evidence suggests that they were taken, and I doubt angels with such intentions as your describing would go through the trouble of faking identical crime scenes.”

“We’ll need to take a look at those.” Sam stated, interrupting the climbing tension, “And Hannah, just so I can start building a timeline; exactly how many angels have gone missing?”

There was a pregnant pause which left the question hanging awkwardly in the air while Hannah seemed to flounder, tugging distractedly at her shirt cuffs, and voiding eye contact with any of them. Finally, she seemed to find her resolve, and she folded her hands over her desk to address them directly.

“Sixty.” 

All three men bulked at the number, but Cas was the first to recover, though he seemed shaken to his core.

“Sixty?!” He barked incredulously, surging up from his chair to pin her with an intense glare, his fingers curled into tight fists at his sides. Dean could swear he felt electricity crackle through the air. “Why the hell have you only just now contacted me?”

The brothers exchanged looks of equal alarm. Angels were supposed to be some of the most powerful beings in creation. For so many of them to simply disappear in such a short time was not only mysterious; it was downright frightening. Hannah bristled at the accusation in Castiel’s tone but managed to maintain her straight-backed posture in spite of his sudden fury. 

“We had been conducting our own investigation.” She shot back defensively.

“Oh yeah, lot of good that did you.” Dean seethed from Castiel’s side. “You shoulda brought us here when all this started. It’s only, like, our job to figure this kinda shit out--”

“Dean. Cas. Chill out.” Sam warned before addressing Hannah once again. “We can’t do anything about the elapsed time, but we’re here now so just tell us everything you can.”

While Sam set about collecting information from Hannah, Cas excused himself and Dean back out into the hallway. He could both sense and visibly see some of the tension leave Dean’s shoulders which in turn helped ease his own. Dean took advantage of the momentary privacy to lean up against a doorless section of the hallway and scrub his hands over his face to clear his head.

“What the hell Cas?” He groaned, “Sixty freaking angels go missing in four days? Shit that’s...fifteen every twenty-four hours. Why the hell did she wait so long?”

“Reorganizing the chaos left up here after...” Cas let the sentence drop off; they both knew what had caused it without needing to talk about it. “...with all of the separate factions vying for power, it would have been difficult for any group of them to take the reins, let alone a single leader. Hannah, for all you might think of her, has worked miracles up here. If I were to guess, she probably didn’t want to admit to herself or anyone else that she didn’t have a handle on this situation."

Dean crossed his arms and observed the angel as he spoke, nodding along in agreement, “Makes sense then why she got so defensive when I suggested the possibility of deserters.”

“Indeed. I still wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but fifteen a day does seem like a steep number. If they had all been of the same mind as to flee Heaven, they would have had better odds going en masse.”

“So what do you think it is?” 

For a moment, the angel looked beyond lost and exhausted, but then he rolled his shoulders and it was replaced by a resolute determination that made Dean’s heart beat a little faster. “I don’t know, but she said that there were crime scenes to investigate, so we should find those.”

The last word barely left his mouth before the delicate flutter of wings alerted them to the fact that they were no longer alone. Dean managed to keep himself from jumping out of his skin this time, but his heart still hammered when he looked to the side to find the pair of angels who had led them there.

“We will guide you to the first scene,” Harut informed them.

“Stay close.” His brother grunted from his side, “Don’t wander. You are here to perform a function, nothing more.”

Dean bristled at the patronizing warning, but Cas planted a hand on his shoulder to calm him.

“Lead us.” Cas ordered icily, and Dean felt a little jolt down his spine when the gravelly ‘sick of this shit’ tone flanged with the same duel quality it had earlier while he was speaking Enochian; only this time it came on sharper like pressing and dragging fingers across a guitar string.

The hunter mentally checked himself as he followed after the angels. _Cas’s ‘I will smite you’ angel voice did not just make you shiver. Get ahold of yourself Winchester. Common!_

The pair fell into step, once again trailing behind their assigned escort, this time en route to the scene of the first disappearance. It wasn‘t as far a trek as it had been to Hannah’s office and before long they were being ushered through another white door. Dean staggered a bit when this one opened up into a vast garden which stretched out in every direction as far as his eyes could see. Above him, the sky seemed to have the same pearlescent quality as the clouds outside of Hannah’s window, and the hunter had to shield his eyes from it to see with any success. The air was saturated with the scents of a thousand different types of flowers and, though he would never admit it to another living soul, the hunter felt a nearly immutable desire to run off the white stone path and frolick through them--naked.

“Is this...?” Dean heard himself asking, heat flushing over his cheeks at the raw wonder he could pick out in his own voice.

“Yes,” Cas told him, giving the hunter a once over that he didn't notice. “Though not the infamous ‘tree of good and evil’ section. That is quartered off.”

“Holy freaking crap.”

“If you’re quite finished ogling?” Harut drawled from several feet in front of them.

Dean was instantly snapped back to his senses, scowling after the escort as they continued. He caught Cas’s eye and shrugged apologetically, but the angel simply gave him the faint whisper of a smile which had a strangely hypnotic quality to it before the angel turned to catch up with the others. 

Due to the timeless, un-altering heaven-scape, the scene, along with all of its evidence, remained unchanged from the moment it had been created. As they approached, the most obvious oddity could be seen at a distance. It was a large sigil of the same size and shape as a devil’s trap splashed across the white stone, but the escort stopped them short to point out some sort of sickly yellow substance which was splattered out from a point nearest to them in a vee which stretched about six feet down the path, and along the flowers on either side. Inside the vee was an oblong shape of clean pathway that Dean could only assume meant some poor bastard had taken a direct hit of whatever the hell the stuff was. When Castiel knelt to examine it closer, Harut caught his shoulder to keep him from touching it.

“Stay your hand, Castiel,” he warned, “It’s dangerous.”

“What do you mean dangerous?”

“Uh, Cas?” Dean called from a bit further up the path. He had gone to examine the flowers which had been doused with the yellow crap and discovered with some disgusted shock that whatever plants had been touched now appeared shriveled and burned up. Even the stone on the path seemed corroded. The smell was awful. Cas came up beside him, his brow furrowing as he took in the sight.

“Jesus,” Dean hissed, “If it did this to some flowers and stone, what the hell did it do to the angel?”

This time Marut answered. His voice was like the rumble of thunder but wavered in a way that suggested he was more perturbed by the whole ordeal than his brother, “We believe it’s a toxin of some sort. Preliminary tests indicate that small doses to angels can produce burns to the skin, blindness in the eyes and, if ingested, can cause paralysis. Higher doses result in loss of consciousness, neurodegeneration and ultimately, death.”

“Tests?” Dean snapped, his tone sharp and accusatory as he turned on his heel to pin the larger angel with a glare. “Who the hell are you testing it on up here?”

Marut raised one bushy brow, tilting his thickly bearded face to the side, “There are many prisoners in Heaven’s dungeons who are fit subjects for experiments.”

“Experiments?!” Dean spat the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. He was no fan of angels outside of Cas, but experiments on prisoners like lab rats were low even for the average heavenly douche bag.

“If we are to learn anything about what this toxin has to do with our missing brothers and sisters, a criminal’s discomfort is of little consequence.” There was a slight sneer in the angel’s tone as if daring the hunter to challenge him. It worked as intended, igniting the elder Winchester’s outrage to full-blown fury.

The Mark prickled to life, making him see red.

His glare could have melted steel, but the moment Dean squared his shoulders to stand at his full height, Castiel stepped directly between him and the giant prick before the hunter had a chance to punch the bastard in his stupid furry face. The angel quelled whatever escalating thoughts were bouncing around in the hunter’s brain with a solid hand on his chest.

“Dean,” Castiel breathed his name into the space between them, the rasping sound just loud enough for his ears alone. Like before, the dual tones buzzed in Dean’s ears, but this time it was the pleading hum to it that caught him off guard. On the surface, Cas appeared as stoic as ever, but the twang of his true voice gave way his own distress over the newly revealed information. “We have more pressing things to focus on.”

The hunter’s nostrils flared as he inhaled heavily around his scantily contained anger, but his mind latched onto the warm pressure of Cas’s hand where it was splayed wide across his chest, finding far more distraction than he should have in the gentle brush of one fingertip over the skin just above the crew collar of his t-shirt.

It was enough to bring him out of it.

Dean glanced briefly over Cas’s features, lingering minutely his stormy eyes, before breaking the circuit of their touch and turning away with a scoffed, “Whatever you say.”

While Dean stalked off to cool his temper and investigate more of the scene, Cas returned his attention to the angelic brothers, his face set in a devastating scowl. “Stop. Provoking. Him." He growled threateningly at Marut, who had the wherewithal to look away under the elder angel’s bright-eyed glare. To Harut he stated, “These experiments cannot be allowed to continue. We are too few, especially now, to risk the lives of even the lowest of our kind.”

“You are in no position to make such demands Castiel,” Marut barked, his former submission all but forgotten, “Or have you forgotten that the devastation of our species began with you?”

“Be silent Marut,” Harut hissed in warning, sensing Castiel’s mounting impatience for his companion.

“But--” The bearded angel made to protest, but a sharp glare from his brother brought him up short, and he fell back into place with a few short peevish tugs at his suit collar.

Harut peered back at Castiel with his glassy dark eyes, his hands clasped stiffly behind his back. “Despite what you and your...companion...might believe, the experiments did reveal valuable information we would not have been able to obtain any other way. The effects were only the beginning.”

“What else then?”

“We definitively concluded that the toxin is biological in origin.”

Castiel’s eyes widened a fraction. “Are you telling me a biological creature is responsible for this?”

A single nod from Harut assured Castiel that they were in understanding. “It would seem that this mystery is full of impossibilities.”

Impossibility was an understatement. Without powerful magical aid, such as the coins Harut had provided, no creature of the lower realm should have been able to enter heaven without vaporizing instantaneously. Either this creature was something inconceivably powerful or...

A chill ran through Castiel.

...it had had help.

Harut watched him intently as he worked through the implications but made no comment. Similarly, Castiel gave no outward indication as to his suspicions but managed to frame his next question as a natural follow up to his previous statement. “So a biological creature produced this toxin that can incapacitate an angel. That doesn’t explain how it got here or where it is now.”

“That does seem to be the pressing issue,” Harut replied with a knowing glint in his eye that gave Castiel pause. “Let us continue the survey of the scene.” The lean angel turned away, taking the lead further down the path toward the sigil they had seen upon their approach, his brother a shadow on his heels. “Castiel,” He suddenly spoke in warning, peering over his shoulder. Cas was startled by the grim expression darkening his typically neutral features. “Steel yourself.”

Castiel’s brows drew down in anticipation, but he followed without a word. As they approached the sigil, Castiel became aware of a familiar energy signature which identified another kindred grace. Another angel. A cursory glance around the immediate area revealed no one other than the escort and himself. His own energy stretched out to examine it but the moment contact was made, his grace recoiled in pain before collapsing into his core. He inhaled sharply, his entire body going rigid. Something was grotesquely wrong with this energy source. When finally, the three angels came to a halt before the large sigil, he peered down at the unfamiliar symbols with an expression he trained carefully blank despite the horror slowly creeping up his spine.

Castiel could feel his entire being rejecting what his eyes were showing him. His rational mind raced, grasping for any other possibility, desperate for another explanation other than the one that his instincts knew to be undeniable. 

The intricate design was drawn entirely in liquefied grace.

Castiel had been a seasoned warrior long before human beings had even existed. He had seen grace in every terrible way an angel could see it; expelled by force, corrupted by darkness, burned away in holy fire, torn asunder on the celestial plane and ripped apart upon entering the earth’s atmosphere...but in all of his existence, he had never seen anything like this.

Angelic grace was a dynamic incandescent celestial energy, but it was so much more than a mere power source. Grace was the very foundation of an angel’s being, at once it’s celestial body, it’s life force and something like a soul. To see it smeared along the ground, dull and dark and dingy grey, gruesomely viscid in a macabre mirror of coagulated human blood...it was both inconceivable and utterly horrifying to behold.

After he had regained control of his temper, Dean had continued to survey the crime scene. He was in the process of examining two weird oblong discs of metal which were stuck in the thin seems between the white bricks that made up the pathway, when he felt a sudden sense of urgency tingle up the back of his skull. He shot back to his feet like a bullet and turned just in time to witness Castiel’s knee’s buckle.

A second later, the hunter was at his side, clutching Cas’s upper arm to keep him upright and grunting out a slew of curses under the sudden dead weight before throwing his other arm around the angel’s waist to stabilize him. From his periphery, Dean could see Marut’s sour expression of distaste and pointedly ignored it in favor of focusing on Cas’s sudden fainting spell. Distracted, he didn’t see Harut’s piercing observation. 

With a bit of maneuvering, Dean managed to keep the angel on his feet, muttering a reassuring, ‘I got you’, under his breath.

Castiel slumped forward, his forehead pressing heavily against Dean’s shoulder but his stunned brain barely registered the hunter’s arms around him. His head swam with a sudden rush of dizziness, while the unpleasant sensation of nausea churned in his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face just slightly inward toward the crook of Dean’s neck, inhaling the hunter’s familiar scent with slow deep breaths to ground himself.

Had he not been caught so off guard by the sudden and completely uncharacteristic vulnerability in his friend, Dean would definitely have been panicking over their too intimate proximity, the warm breath on his neck, the heavy body in his arms, but at least for the moment, his worry outweighed his insecurity while he held his friend up. Dean gingerly murmured the angel’s name close enough that the black hair curling over his ear brushed faintly at his lips. 

When he remained unresponsive, Dean growled and gave him a light shake before hissing a gravelly, “Damn it Cas, snap out of it will you?!”

That seemed to do the trick. Castiel finally lifted his head, peering up at Dean with those wide crystalline eyes as though he were surprised to see the hunter so close. For a moment, they simply stared at one another, Dean’s arms still wrapped securely around the angel, before Cas seemed to come back to himself. He gently extracted himself from the circle of the hunter’s arms with a shaky thanks. Dean let him go, though kept one hand on the angel’s shoulder for a beat longer while he found his footing. When Cas was once again stable on his feet, Dean shoved both hands firmly into his pockets to hide the tense fists his fingers had twisted into.

The panic held at bay by his concern now flooded his body with adrenaline. He had just been holding Cas like he was some sort of white knight. Like he was his goddamned prince charming. His heart felt like it might simultaneously pound out of his rib cage and cease beating altogether.

“Cas, what the hell man?” Dean demanded, his voice wavering on just this side of hysterical, but he played it off fairly well as alarmed concern for his friend’s strange behavior. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“Forgive me, Dean,” Castiel replied, not meeting his eyes. The angel’s voice wavered in a way Dean hadn’t heard since his suicidal admission in the face of what he’d done to Heaven during that terrible ‘god-complex’ period. “This is very disturbing. I must have entered a state of shock.”

The hunter visibly tensed, tearing his eyes away from his friend to run a cursory glance around the scene before coming back to Cas, “It looks like a devil’s trap but the writing’s different. I haven’t seen anything like it. Do you know what it means?”

“No,” Cas replied. This time his voice was firmer, more like himself. His expression hardened as he looked away, meeting the gaze of Harut who had since moved to stand on the opposite side of the sigil several feet away, his brother ever at his side. Dean was about to ask how it could be so disturbing if he didn’t even know what it was, but one of the heavenly asshole brigade interrupted him.

“No one has been able to decipher it.” Harut informs them, “The language appears to be one even Heaven has no record of.”

“No record?” Dean parroted in disbelief, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be the alpha and the omega? Know the A to Z on all of creation?”

“Indeed,” The taller angel replied with mild irritation, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder when the broad man bristled at the clear insult in the hunter’s tone. “Heaven has been in..disarray.” His eyes flit briefly over to Castiel before inclining his head to look down his nose at the hunter. “Many of the records in our archives have been lost or destroyed, but the few archivists still alive assure me that even were they not, there would have been nothing there of use. We can only assume that this sigil, whatever language it is written in, was used to ensnare the victims once they were assaulted with the toxin.”

“Creature?” Dean asked, stunned, “Your saying a flesh and blood monster is taking out angels?”

“The toxin has a biological origin.” Castiel informed him, bringing him up to speed. 

“Jesus,” Dean uttered in disbelief, scrubbing a hand down his face before glancing back in the direction he’d come from. “I found some other stuff back there,” He stated somberly, chancing a sideways glance at Castiel who still seemed pale and beyond tense. The angel’s eyes darted over to him briefly before flitting away toward the sigil again, seemingly mesmerized by it. Dean gestured vaguely toward the direction he had come from earlier, “It looked like a puddle of melted metal. I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at before but now...Cas...I think they might have been angel blades.”

Cas’s head snapped to the side at this, catching Dean’s eyes with another look of such stunned disbelief that the hunter throws up a hand to grip his arm just in case the angel went all fainting damsel again. 

“That’s impossible.” He says flatly.

“But correct.” Harut interjects, “The last link in this chain of improbable anomalies. Angelic steel is the strongest substance in the known universe. Nothing should be able to damage it, let alone melt it.”

“What could have done such a thing?” Castiel asked, his voice strained.

“Maybe the toxin?” Dean suggested, “Anywhere that shit touched was scorched and dead, even the stone on the path looked like it was corroded.”

Harut seemed to consider this for a moment, “An interesting hypothesis, but we didn’t test the toxin on any blades.”

“Of course not,” Dean barked, jabbing a finger their direction, “Just the freaking angels”

“Dean,” Castiel meant to sound commanding, but it came out more like an exhausted plea. “We should regroup with Sam and catch him up on what we’ve learned.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Dean agreed, still wary of Cas’s earlier episode and still not quite sure what exactly had brought it on. Sure the case was a bit harrowing, but they had surely been through worse than some weird metal melting toxic goop and mystery languages. Dean wanted nothing more than to chalk it up to the missing angels. It would make sense. Despite rebelling against Heaven, and making some decidedly poor decisions when it came to his brethren, Castiel was still a protective brother. It was evident in the urgency with which he’d answered Hannah’s summons. Dean could relate; he’d do anything to find Sam if he had gone missing like this. However, the hunter couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that he was missing a big piece in this puzzle.

While Abbott and Costello marched them back to find Hannah and Sam, Dean caught Cas’s sleeve to slow the angel down so they could both fall into step several paces behind the others. 

“What was that back there, Cas?” Dean questioned in a low voice, “You damn near passed out on me and you look shook as hell.”

Cas came to a sudden halt, peering ahead at the escort as they continued on seemingly without notice, but he didn’t doubt they were both listening in to every word. Regardless, Cas dropped his head and leaned in close to whisper in the space between them, if for no other reason than the brevity of what he was about to reveal.

“The sigil.” He began, his expression as still as stone, “It was written in angelic grace.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed clearly understanding that this was not a good thing, but still didn’t seem to grasp why. “Okay? So--?”

“So,” Cas intoned harsher than necessary but his head felt light and dizzy again the more he thought about it and the anger grounded him, “Grace is an ethereal energy Dean; a wavelength, a vibration of light particles. That...substance...was liquefied grace. Something forced it to congeal like human blood.”

Dean went very still, his eyes fixed on Cas with an unreadable expression before he turned away, looking forward toward their escort where they had both stopped several yards ahead, waiting.

“Do they know that?” He asked, jerking his head at the pair before regarding Cas again, this time his brows drawn down with a look somewhere between suspicion and alarm. “I mean, they didn’t say anything about it and it seems like a pretty damn big piece of information to leave out.”

“I’m not sure.” Cas replied, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, “Harut indicated that I should ‘steel myself’ before he led me to examine the sigil, but neither of them gave any other indication before or after that.”

“Well, how did you know then?”

Cas dropped his gaze to some point on the ground, his eyes slipping closed against the memory of his grace connecting to the essence both familiar and unbelievably foreign. “I could feel it like I can feel the presence of other angels. Our grace has a natural tendency to...fill the area around us, but any angel can consciously reach it out to identify something. Not so dissimilar from how you would reach out with your hand, using your sense of touch to identify something.”

“So you can...feel stuff with your grace?” Judging from the slight catch in the middle of the question, Dean seemed to be at once wrapping his mind around this new piece of information while simultaneously reevaluating his interactions over the years with the angel. If the circumstances at the moment hadn‘t been so dire, the slightly perturbed expression on the hunter’s face might have been amusing. As it were Castiel’s jaw remained clenched with visible tension, but he gave one curt nod before taking the first step to catch up with the escort. Dean followed him after a fleeting moment of introspection, falling quickly into step with his friend. Ahead of them, their guides resumed their pace.

Without looking at the angel, Dean addressed him once again, “So how the hell do angelic rainbow waves get turned into grey sludge?”

“I don’t know.” Cas ground out around the tension in his jaw, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The words hung heavy in the air. Stunned by the admission, Dean couldn‘t think of a reassuring way to respond that didn’t sound like a platitude so they slipped into a tense silence for the rest of the walk. The return trip seemed to take longer, and the longer Cas stayed quiet, the more Dean was stricken with an ominous sense of foreboding. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and before long the gravity of the situation seemed to finally sink in.

Cas was old as dirt. He’d seen shit Dean could only imagine and probably a fair amount that he couldn’t. For the angel to not have a clue what was behind this--for any of them not to have a clue for that matter--was messed up on a whole new level. What was worse though, what really had Dean’s stomach twisting in knots, was the fact that Castiel, ‘I raised you from predation’, ‘I rebelled against heaven, smiter of demons and monsters, Angel of the freaking Lord, was completely and utterly shaken to his very core by the whole god damned situation.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay everyone! This week has taken me out at the knees but I'm slowly getting back into the swing of it. I wanted to thank everyone who has left a kudos or commented, or even just taken the time to read, you guys are awesome! I don't think my writing has ever received so much attention and it is endlessly inspiring! This chapter is the last of my stock chapters, so the next update might take a little longer than a week, but it is taking form! Enjoy!

By the time they rejoined Sam, the taller hunter looked just about as perturbed as Dean felt, something that only became more apparent as he filled his little brother in on everything they had seen and learned. Once they were all on the same page, Sam scrubbed a palm over his face to steel himself before slipping back into professional investigator mode.

“So.” He began, addressing the little group which had accumulated in the office; Hannah, behind her desk, Dean and Cas within an arm's length of one another in front of the window, and their escorting angels near the door. “This is a breakdown everything we know in order according to the eye witness statements.” He cleared his throat as he consulted his notes once before continuing, “Four days ago witnesses indicated that, approximately sometime around dawn back on earth, they saw the first victim, Rahmiel, for the last time near Eden's northern quadrant. Their statement's indicated that this was a routine occurrence and that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then, about two hours later, nearly every angel inside the garden reported _sensing_ some sort of 'twisted’ or 'corrupted’ energy signature emanating from a source somewhere within that same quadrant. Later, the first scene was discovered by the angel Haziel when she came to relieve Rahmiel's post.”

Dean kept his eyes on Cas while Sam spoke, worrying that he seemed to get paler with every new piece of information that was revealed.

“Haziel was identified as the second angel to go missing later that same day.” Sam continued on, “She had been answering a summons to a personal heaven at the time but the resulting timeline is the same as the first; everything was on the up and up until every nearby angel sensed the same corrupted energy signature that had cropped up in the garden. An alarm was sounded, but by the time anyone got there to investigate there was no sign of Haziel or the soul that had inhabited the...uh...pocket heaven. Every single disappearance after that follows the same pattern. The victim is going about their duties, angels nearby get hit with the weird energy vibe, the victim is nowhere to be found and then the first angels to arrive at the scene are the next ones to disappear."

Sam fidgeted in the silence that followed his report, one hand jumping up to tuck his hair nervously behind his ear.

Dean straightened his spine and took over at that point, glancing around the room as he spoke. “Me and Cas took at a look at the first crime scene in the garden and found some weird shit. For starters; melted angel blades--I’m talking completely liquefied into puddles here--flowers turned to rotten ash and stone corroded like someone dumped acid all over it. We think it was all caused by some gross yellow goo that smelled like ass. Laverne and Shirly over here--” He indicated the angelic brothers with a crude jerk of his thumb, “--told us about the creepy bio experiments going on in angel jail. Real classy touch by the way Hannah.”

The hunter and angel shared a mutually scathing glare before Dean continued.

“Whatever. Point is, the yellow goo turned out to be some kind of angel specific toxin that can cause burns, blindness, paralysis, bat-shit craziness and eventually if the target is pumped full of enough, they're dead. Plus side of whatever messed Kavorkian bullshit was happening up here, you guys figured out that whatever the hell this thing is, it’s toxic spew has biological markers, meaning that its a flesh a blood monster and we can gank the sonuvabitch.”

Dean shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his eyes back to Cas, unsure of how to continue with the other bit of information that Cas had made him privy to, still having not completely wrapped his head around it himself. His expression must have been enough of a tell because Castiel stepped forward to address the room without preamble.

“We also examined the sigil found on Eden’s northern access pathway.” He stated evenly, his voice rough but carefully devoid of the emotion Dean had heard earlier, “It turned out to be the source of the corrupted energy signature. The sigil itself was written in liquified angelic grace.”

The silence that followed the statement was profound. Sam shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot, while Dean kept a watchful eye on Cas, vigilant of any sign of another episode, but the angel seemed to have found his resolve because he trudged on through his explanation without batting an eye.

“The symbols transcribed in the sigil are unfamiliar to me and Harut indicated that even Heaven’s remaining archivists had no information about their origins or any way to translate their meaning which is...disconcerting.” He paused for just a moment before turning his head to look at Hannah directly. “I assume that every other scene was identical to this one?”

She swallowed and gave one curt nod.

Cas mirrored the motion, “As I suspected. It seems that all we’ve been able to discern is that whatever this creature is, it is uniquely specialized for preying on angels."

“So we basically have jack with a side of squat,” Dean complained gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Not necessarily,” Sam countered, “We know that this monster is biological. We talked about this earlier Cas. Biological means it had to have originated somewhere on the third and fourth-dimensional plain...” The younger hunter took a moment to flip back through his notes before speaking again. “And according to Hannah, angels disappearing without a trace like this has happened before but not since before Michael gave the no-go order almost over 2000 years ago, and definitely not in numbers like this”

“Wait, this has shit has happened before?” Dean squawked. He cast a betrayed glare at Cas. “What the hell Cas, you told me you’d never seen this!”

“I haven’t!” Cas shot back, turning his own glare to Hannah, “What exactly were you referring to Hannah!?”

Hannah inclined her chin primly as every pair of eyes in the room fell on her.

“It wasn’t a close guarded secret.” She stated curtly, “You were there Castiel, we all were, but Naomi’s...reprogramming...effected your memory of it." 

Dean seemed to be the only one who saw the raw anguish that shadowed the vibrant blue of the angel’s eyes. Somewhere in the distance, a muffled sound like fracturing ice or a clap of thunder was the only indication he was given before Dean was suddenly awash an intensely cold pressure pressing in on him from every direction; not unlike plunging into the depths of frigid water. Dean couldn’t help but stare. The sensation was rolling off of Cas in waves, but as Dean glanced around the room, no one else gave away any indication that they had felt it too...

Until his eyes landed on Harut. His intense obsidian eyes were fixated directly on Dean. It was only for a moment before the older hunter looked away trying with all his might to make it look like a natural sweep of the room, but in his heart, he knew it had looked like anything but.

Hannah continued, seemingly oblivious to what had just occurred. “Before Michael forbade all angels from interacting with humans again until the end of days, our kind were free to come and go from the lower realm to watch over, to aid and to protect humans as God had originally intended for us. Back then, only a few angels would go missing at a time, but the frequency was so sporadic with so little evidence that any investigation into the disappearances garnered nothing. There were no scenes to investigate, no strange energy signatures, or toxic residue. They were just gone.”

“Just gone?!” Dean fumed throwing his hands up. The mark sparked to life, searing the flesh beneath his shirt sleeve and he gave into the anger to escape the apprehension Harut had produced with his freaky staring. “Well that’s just great. Thanks to your shitty job the first go around, sixty of you feathered assholes are fucking ‘just gone’.” The volume in his voice increased steadily with his agitation until he was shouting the last words back in Hannah’s face.

“Dean!” Sam snapped, just after the last word left his brother’s mouth, his expression tight and shocked.

When Dean came back to himself, he followed Sam’s pointed look to find Cas glaring at the floor, his fists shaking with the effort to remain in control of himself, his cerulean eyes glossy with angry tears. A sharp, pitchy crackling like splintering glass filled the hunter’s senses, prickling painfully under his skin and behind his eyes.

A brief glance around made him aware of three identical heated glares burning into him from the other three angels in the room. Though the hunter could have given a rat’s ass about them, he did feel a deep pang of guilt and shame for going off like that in front of Cas. He hadn’t been thinking, as per usual. Cas was still an angel, and he was obviously hugely affected by whatever was going on here, but that was the entire reason Dean felt so strongly about it in the first place. Whatever this thing was, angels were its main targets which meant that any one of them could be next, including Cas. The mere thought of it was enough to get Dean’s blood boiling again, but instead of spinning out at the stupid angel’s and their stupid excuses and half-truths again, he abruptly turned and made for the door.

Marut planted himself between the hunter and the exit with one large hand situated behind his lapel to, Dean assumed, grip a hidden angel blade. The mark hissed murderous intent in the back of his mind and his fingers twisted into fists at his sides as he stalked closer. He itched for a fight, to strike out and beat in the bastard’s bearded face until it was pulp on this knuckles but the set in his’s shoulders must have made it obvious because before he even had to slow his stride, Hannah was ordering the hulking angel to step aside and let him pass. 

Dean squashed down the flare of bitter disappointment and a second later was slamming the door closed behind him with enough force the impact left his hand tingling and then he was back out in the infinite hallway, seething and alone. 

When Sam attempted to speak up about his brother’s outburst, Hannah merely raised a hand to silence him, her expression resigned and a bit tired. Castiel remained bitterly silent while she thanked them for their time, and requested that they keep her updated on their progress to which Sam agreed probably a bit too eagerly; he was about as ready to get out of there as she was to see them leave. When she finally dismissed them, Cas turned on his heel and stalked toward the door without a word or backward glance leaving Sam to give her an awkward good-bye before hurrying after him.

Like before, Marut blocked the door with his mountain of a body, but he quickly shuffled out of the way without a word from Hannah. However, before Cas could even touch the doorknob, Harut stepped forward. The pair faced off eye to eye for a one tense moment before the slim angel raised his hand as if to shake. Cas seemed a bit thrown off by this very human gesture, hesitating and uncertain scowl before taking it up in his own.

“Be vigilant brother.” Harut warned with a grim glint in his eyes, though his face remained devoid of emotion. 

When Sam and Cas finally exited the office, Dean had calmed himself down to the point where he like a right and proper dick, but he bit back the apology he’d worked himself up to making when Cas breezed past him without a backward glance. Okay, he was pissed. Sam, though clearly also no more happy to see him, paused a moment to give his brother a pissy once over before nodding meaningfully in Cas’s direction, and the pair followed after him.

In light of his outburst, it seemed as though Hannah had forgone the escort this time, instead entrusting Cas to know his own way out and that he would take the brothers with him. His pace was swift and stiff, and the only sound between them was the sharp click of the angel’s dress shoes against the tile accompanied by the lumbersome echo of the brothers’ following boots.

It wasn’t until they reached the door marked 42 that Cas finally turned to face them, his shoulders rigid, his hands balled into fists at his sides. His eyes feel first to Sam, but then lingered heatedly on Dean before he informed them curtly that the return trip to earth would likely be just as unpleasant as the ascent. In his rough voice the words came out more like a growl, and his tone conveyed that he wasn’t too concerned about the discomfort that they’d experience this time. Without another word, he wrenched the door open, flooding the already bright hallway with an impossibly brighter light, before stalking over the threshold and disappearing into the blinding swirl.

The moment his form vanished one of Sam’s gigantic fists flew up and in a blur of movement made a precise and painful impact against his brother’s bicep, accompanied by a scathing, “What the hell is wrong with you Dean?!”

The older hunter bit back an undignified yelp. He knew that he deserved it, but it was still irritating to be on the business end of one of his brother’s well-placed punches; he’d hit the pressure point between the muscles with his middle knuckle for maximum punishment.

“I know I know.” Dean grumbled, rubbing at the spot to sooth the ache, “I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah, ya’think?” Sam snapped barely after the words left his mouth before sighing long-sufferingly and crossing his arms like a disgruntled wife. “They need our help Dean, but more importantly, Cas asked us to help with this. He’s counting on us to do what we do best up here, and you couldn’t put a pause on the posturing for five seconds while we all digested this messed up situation?!”

It was no secret that Dean wasn’t exactly Hannah’s biggest fan, but he did feel guilty about the escalation and he wasn’t about to let Sam go on thinking it had just been him throwing his ego around to try and get a rise out of a few angels. He told him as much.

“Hey look, I lacked tact back there for sure, but I meant what I said. Angels are missing and she didn’t think to tell us about the first time it happened right off the bat? And those other two are throwing off some seriously shady vibes too, especially that skinny shark-eyed one. Cas told me they knew what that sigil was written with but they never said anything, they just let him figure it out himself. He almost passed out Sam!” 

The tight fold of the younger hunter’s arms loosened. “Huh. Now that you mention it, Harut did act kinda strangely toward Cas when we left.”

“I don’t like it. The whole damn thing reeks.” Dean paused, looking away from the younger hunter, his eyes flickering around the middle space while he recalled the crime scene. “And shit Sam, I know we told you about it, but if you had seen what that toxic shit did to the plants, to the stone and the _angelic steal_ , you’d be freaking out too. Whatever this thing is, it’s taking out angels and it’s doing it fast enough and clean enough that no one knows how or why. Anyone of them could be next. Hell, even Cas...”

Sam’s entire posture shifted as his brother’s words trailed off. With the barrage of events and information, he hadn’t even considered the possibility of Cas being in danger. With a sidelong glance, he carefully watched his brother’s expression and the genuine concern he saw there eased some of the heat out of his temper. Despite the obvious influence the Mark had had in that outburst in Hannah’s office, Sam felt more at ease knowing his brother’s heart had been in the right place.

Hazel eyes softened without Dean taking notice: it occurred right then to Sam that when it came to Castiel, Dean’s heart always seemed to be in the right place.

“Fair enough.” Sam finally relented, but jabbed a finger pointedly in his brother’s face, “But I’m sure Cas has been thinking along those same lines. Anyone could be next, including him. I’ve never seen him this out of sorts but that just means he needs us now more than ever. So man up; he’s going to need pillar of support Dean right now, not irrational easily provoked Dean.” He looked as though he was about to let it go, but then poked the older hunter in the same spot he’d punched for good measure, adding a slightly less scathing and a bit more nagging, “And apologize!”

The older hunter hissed at the jab but rolled his eyes, “Yeah mom, I get it. Let’s just go.”

Once again, the pair stepped through the light together.

This time though, Dean anticipated the vertigo and nausea-inducing drop in his stomach before his feet made an impact with semi-solid surface sand. What he did not expect, however, was to step off the lip of the sandbox, and once again collide with Castiel.

He grunted a surprised, “What the hell Cas,” but the words died on his lips when he stepped around the seemingly frozen angel to take in the sight before them. From somewhere behind him, he could hear his brother wheeze out a startled explicative, but all Dean could do was stare while every one of his senses lit up to high alert all at once.

The same sigil they had found in heaven encircled the entire play structure directly in front of them, the liquid grace still glossy and moist. The structure itself was half destroyed, some places bent and broken as if from heavy impact while others appeared melted away to dripping pillars and pools of metal and plastic sludge. Three silver puddles of molten metal caught the light of the single buzzing street lamp. Several vee’s of toxic spray still wet from discharge arched across the ground; the thing had given chase. All around them, steam still ebbed into the cool night air now stained with the noxious stench of the toxin and the unmistakable scent ozone.

Micah and Muriel were nowhere to be seen.

Fuck.

Dean tore his eyes away from the scene long enough to catch a glimpse of Cas’ horror-stricken face before the angel broke into action, sprinting over to the sigil and desperately calling out for the angel guards who had been there mere hours ago. It was such a startling change from his previous state indignation that Dean felt himself start to panic but he wasn’t sure if it was empathy in the face of Cas’s own mania or his own in the face of another angel-napping in such close proximity to them...to Cas.

Sam found his voice first, shouting after their friend, “Cas! Wait! We don’t know if it’s still here!”

His brother’s warning instantly snapped the older hunter back into his own skin, his focus narrowing down to training and instinct. Both hunters quickly drew their weapons to survey the area, Dean falling to point and Sam to his flank without any need for words. Sam’s warning seemed to have reached Cas as well despite his hysteria because the angel had gone on the defensive while he continued to call out and search, his angel blade drawn despite it’s proven uselessness in the face of whatever was doing this. His posture was fierce but his incandescent eyes were wide with a fear that he couldn’t quite mask.

After several heart-stopping minutes of searching, Dean was satisfied that the area was devoid of any life, at least for the moment, he broke away from Sam without a word, trotting quickly over to Cas.

“Any sign of them?” The older hunter called out as he approached, already knowing the answer.

Cas’s face contorted in anguished frustration as he turned to face his friend, “No.” He growled, voice wavering with emotion. “No, it’s just like the other. There is no trace; they are just...gone.”

Dean hated himself when his own angry voice echoed those same words back in his mind, harsh and spiteful. Cas’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears, just as they had been back in Hannah’s office, but this time when he met Dean’s eyes, it felt as though the air had been kicked from his lungs. He hadn’t seen the angel look so lost and afraid since Dean had turned him away from the bunker. Dean suddenly felt an overwhelming need to pull him close, to wrap him up and keep him safe but he violently squashed the impulse--now was not the time for that nonsense--instead managing to simply lay a hand over his shoulder in what he hoped was a gesture of reassurance

“We’ll figure this out,” Dean told him gently, desperately trying to keep the mounting dread out of his voice, “We’ll get them back. But right now, we need to get you out of here.”

Cas’s eyes flashed defiantly at him. “I refuse to hide while my brethren are abducted! Sam was right, the creature could still be close by! If we could just--”

Dean held the angel’s heated gaze, determined not to back down. Cas could be pissed about it all he wanted, but the fact of the matter was there was something out there snatching up angels like they were going out of style. They had literally just waltzed into another crime scene that hadn’t been there a few measly hours ago and Dean was in no mood to play the 'duty before safety’ game with his friend. 

His grip tightened meaningfully on Cas’s shoulder. “Think about it Cas, if you go flying off half-cocked you’re just making yourself a target--”

With a frustrated growl, Cas shrugged Dean‘s hand away. “Micah and Muriel are gone, Dean! Every second we waste doing nothing has consequences! You were in loath of Hannah when it was revealed how long she sat on these disappearances! Why are you hesitating now that the bastard is within striking distance!?”

“Because I don’t want you to be next, alright?!” Dean bellowed without thinking, the swell of accompanying emotion in his chest so powerful it was on par with the sensations he’d experienced in Heaven and for one surreal second it was as though they had switched places and Cas was the one seemingly overwhelmed, his expression one of shocked awe. Dean took advantage of the distraction and leaned just a bit into the angel’s personal space, twisting his fingers into the sleeve of his trench coat. In a low, urgent tone he continued, “Look, the only thing we know about this son of a bitch is that it preys on angels! So sue me if I think maybe we should take our only angel to a safe place while we regroup and figure this shit out!”

“Dean’s right Cas,” Sam spoke up, approaching them with his pistol still drawn from his perimeter check. Dean stepped back to a respectable distance, but his hand didn’t drop from the angel’s coat sleeve and Sam pretended not to notice. “We don’t know anywhere close to enough about this thing to go after it. We don’t even know how it gets from point A to B or where it goes once it’s got its prey." When Cas still seemed resistant, Sam holstered his weapon and raised his phone for the angel to see. “Look, I’ve documented this entire area and took enough notes while we were upstairs to get us started on the research end. Hannah said angels disappearing has happened before, so let's head back to the bunker and crack into the lore so we can figure out what we’re dealing with. Once we get a foot hold, we’ll be able to make a plan of attack.”

“And in the meantime?” Cas grated out, this time not bothering to shake off Dean’s grip, “While more angels go missing? Am I just supposed to pretend that that isn’t happening?”

“You won’t be any help to them if you join them,” Dean told him with a hint of pleading. “Common man, come back with us where it’s safe so we can kick this things ass later. Together.”

Cas looked liked he wanted to argue further, but after a fleeting moment wherein those stormy blue eyes bore into Dean, the angel seemed to deflate. His gaze fell to the ground and then to Dean’s hand where it still held a tight grip on his coat sleeve as if that alone would be enough to keep him rooted there should he have chosen to leave. Eventually, his gaze swiveled back up to the hunter’s face, this time looking resigned and exhausted. 

“You’re right.” He conceded with a sigh.

Relieved that they’d gotten through to him, Dean released his sleeve, his fingers smoothing over the wrinkled fabric before pulling back completely. Neither seemed to notice Sam peering at them with an expression of dawning understanding which he wisely schooled back into something like urgent concern when his brother turned to address him.

“Alright, let’s get the hell out of here.”

They made for the Impala, keeping their eyes trained on the darkest parts of the shadows, prepared for a fight in the event one arose but for time being all seemed quiet. They piled in, Cas slumping heavily into the backseat while Sam took his customary shotgun. The car was silent save for a faint metallic jingle as Dean fumbled around with the keys. Cas could feel the sickly twisted energy radiating from the sigil in the park much more vibrantly than he what had felt from the scene in a Heaven despite his best efforts to keep his grace tightly coiled close to himself, and it made his stomach twist with nausea. When Dean finally turned the key in the ignition and began backing out of the space, Cas let his forehead fall against the soothing coolness of the window.

As Dean pulled out of the lot and back onto the road, every pair of eyes inside the car scanned the surrounding tree lines, holding out for the chance that they might catch a glimpse of the missing angels, but as the site near the sandbox, there was no trace. Dean’s attention kept flickering between the road and the rearview to keep an eye on Cas, while Sam observed inconspicuously from the passenger seat.

Unbeknownst to any of them, the deep shadow at the edges of the illuminated path created by the headlights watched them all.

It followed.

It hungered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried introducing a new place in the Bunker in this chapter, I hope it makes sense. I read a lot of fics where Cas gets his own bedroom, or he roams the halls at night, but for some reason, I really liked the idea of him taking over a place in the bunker that the boys never really hung around in; a place that was pretty much his that was cooler than a simple bedroom. I figured a chapel would be a good fit for an angel. Good lord, I hope the layout makes some sense.
> 
> ...I wonder where that shadow got to...

It was well into the early morning by the time the impala rolled into the bunker’s parking garage. Before the car had even made a complete stop, Cas had flung the rear driver's side door open and scrambled out of the back seat. Without a backward glance, he stalked away as Dean killed the engine, ignoring the older hunter when he called after him, disappearing inside the bunker. The brothers dragged themselves to their feet shortly after, both physically exhausted after the long haul drive and the back to back investigations. 

Dean shook his head with a huff, still more than a little guilty about how he’d acted and beyond worried for his friend’s well being. He clicked his own door shut before pressing the back door closed as well, catching Sam’s eyes over the roof as he went. His brother’s expression was a mirror of his; tired and concerned but there was something else there too. It was a knowing sort of glimmer. It wasn’t new, on the contrary, it was one that usually accompanied the phrase, ‘we should talk about this’, but for some reason, this particular look made Dean nervous.

“What?” The older hunter asked covering up his nerves with petulance and prepared some half-way plausible deflections, but Sam merely shook his head and made his way around to the trunk.

“Nothing.” 

“Oh please,” Dean groused, rolling his eyes while he followed suit. “You’ve got the look.”

“What look?” Sam asked incredulously.

“The ‘I think there‘s more going on here, let‘s talk about it’ look,” Dean replied.

The younger hunter lifted a brow, leveling his brother with an unimpressed expression.

“ _Is_ there more going on here that we need to talk about?”

“ ‘Course not.” Dean scoffed, pointedly looking away.

“Right.” The younger Winchester quipped, clearly not buying it for a second.

“There isn’t!” The older hunter denied, shoving his hands in his pockets as Sam fished their bags out of the trunk. He cast his gaze around the garage to avoid his brother’s eyes, “It’s just this case, you know? It’s a lot.”

Sam let out a sigh as he shut the trunk, turning to face his brother directly as he hauled one bag over his shoulder while the other hung from his fist, ready to hand over.

“Look, I get it.” He said simply, shrugging his unoccupied shoulder. “It was a lot to take in, and we’re all tired. Let’s just get inside and get some rest.”

Sam extended the duffle bag in his hand toward his brother. When Dean seemed to flounder, unable to take it and Sam made a move to step away, the words stuck in his throat escaped in a rush before he could stop them. “I’m worried about Cas.”

The younger hunter paused, carefully stowing the small triumphant smirk before turning back to his brother with a carefully crafted expression of exasperation. Dean shuffled uncomfortably under his brother’s scrutiny, but when he lifted eyes that would have better suited a puppy than a hardened middle-aged hunter, Sam relented with a slight shake of his shaggy head, his expression softening.

He _knew_ it.

It wasn’t that it was new to him by any stretch. Whatever the thing was that was going on between his brother and the angel had been coasting on the same unacknowledged track for years. Despite being completely inept when it came to actually talking about emotions, Dean wore his remarkably openly on his sleeves. It wasn’t always the greatest thing, chiefly when he was pissed or depressed, but on the rarer occasions he was happy or sentimental, the open broadcast was a pleasant room-filling warmth that always brought a smile to Sam’s face.

Before Cas had come into their lives, those warm moments had been few and far between, especially after their dad had died, but even early on, when Cas had still been Castiel, Angel of the Lord, Sam had noticed something change in his brother. Of course, it hadn’t been love at first sight, that would be ridiculous to expect from either of them; Castiel being an angel and soldier who hadn’t been near humans or their complicated customs for 2000 years and Dean who had never been in a relationship for longer than a single night. 

Neither had been equipped to identify it, let alone acknowledge it or come to terms with it, but it had been there. 

Cas had always been more difficult to read mostly because he just didn’t necessarily need to express his thoughts and emotions with body language. At first, it had been disconcerting because Sam had never been _sure_ what was going on with the angel, but after some time, he’d begun to see it with him too, that _something different_. He saw it in the way he looked at his brother, the way he spoke to him, the way he held himself around him; like he was caught in the orbit of a star.

Over the years, it had become almost unbearable to be around, mostly because Sam had decided early on not to get involved. It wasn’t his place as a friend or a brother, and he had had no doubt that neither Dean or Cas, stubborn as they both were, would have appreciated him meddling in something so personal, and he hadn’t had any intention of starting now. It wasn’t as if Dean hadn’t been worried about Cas countless times before, but somehow this instance seemed different. It could have been as simple as the angel-specific nature of the case, but Sam’s intuition was telling him there was, as Dean had said, ‘something more going on’. So, just this once, Sam decided to meddle, just a little.

“I am too.” Sam told him honestly, “He’s a mess right now, but can you blame him? Whatever this thing is, it’s targeting angels. It could target him if he goes out searching for it, but sitting on his hands here makes him feel useless.” He took a breath and met his brother’s eyes, praying that the next words came out as a natural transition, beyond aware that his older brother would be perceptive enough to pick out any hint of coercion. “We both know that feeling Dean; angry, guilty, restless, but unlike me, he actually listens to you.”

Dean scoffed at that, rolling his eyes. “I swear to god Sam if you say anything about a ‘profound bond’ I’m going to gag.”

The words were full of the usual bravado, and Sam knew it instantly as a plea for an out from this conversation through humor, and though he was just as uncomfortable right along with his big brother, he resisted the urge to give it to him. Instead, he leveled a patient but serious expression at him.

“It doesn’t matter if I use those words or not, we both know it’s true Dean. He listens to _your_ prayers. He comes when _you_ call. He does what _you_ ask. You guys have had your differences, you’ve beaten the crap out of each other more times than I can count, but he always comes back to _you_. Not to _us_. _To you_. You’re both my brothers, and I love you, but you and Cas...”

Sam hadn’t realized he’d been ranting for the better part of a few minutes until he caught sight of the utter panic and dread on his brother’s face. It was a testament to his current state of worry for the angel in question that he hadn’t bolted from the room yet in utter humiliation. His body was rigid, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, but despite looking as though he were about to bow for the executioner’s block, he kept slightly over wide eyes on his little brother.

He was absolutely petrified.

With a sympathetic sigh, Sam finally relented, stepping closer to briefly clap a hand to his brother’s shoulder. “Look, all I’m saying is maybe it’s time to act out that ‘pillar of support’ roll we talked about, to make up for the ‘easily provoked’ part earlier? Just...go talk to him, Dean. What you say doesn’t really matter, but I’m sure your presence will mean a lot.”

With that, he patted his brother’s shoulder once more before making his way toward the door. “Go on,” He called behind him when his brother remained frozen, “I’ve got the bags.”

It was a full minute before Dean’s brain rebooted and he was able to shake off the almost truth his brother had been about to reveal. Shoving aside the fact that Sam was way more aware of his situation that he had given him credit for, Dean took a steadying breath and headed for the door. He probably should have been more annoyed than he was that Sam was so insufferably perceptive, but if he was being honest with himself, he was kind of glad. Dean was shit in the talking feelings department, he always had been, but Sam seemed to get it without him having to say the words, and though that was terrifying for its own reasons, it did mean it was one less awkward conversation he’d have to suffer through later.

It wasn’t long before he was roaming the interior halls of the bunker, avoiding the shuffling and clanging around in the war-room that signaled Sam was unpacking their weapons. Dean had an idea of where Cas might have gone but he took his time making his way there in an attempt to prepare something to say that wasn’t completely asinine. Sam had said it didn’t matter what he said, but Dean knew from personal experience that going into something like this with Cas without a game plan ended with disastrous miscommunications that left both of them hurt, and hurting Cas more now after everything that had happened was the opposite of what he wanted.

The image of Cas sprinting away from him in a panic and the sound of his broken voice while he called after the missing angels were still so vividly etched into his brain that it made his heart race just recalling it. When the angel had confided in him what the energy ebbing off the sigil had felt like, the horrified revulsion and utter devastation in his voice had been palpable. Sam had definitely hit the nail on the head earlier; pair up all that with not being able to do anything about it, and Dean could practically hear the angel’s self-loathing like the heart-wrenching whine of violin strings.

The hunter came to an abrupt halt at that thought, closing his eyes to strain his hearing and...

He gasped.

It really did sound like the haunting drag of a bow along the strings of a fine instrument, but it was one single elongated note. As he concentrated on the sound, his chest and throat grew tight with emotion, and when he opened his eyes he could _see it_. The hallway was murky with something that looked like shimmering smoke, but as Dean lifted a hand to wave it away, it clung to him like cool water vapor, tingling along any skin it touched. So stunned by what he was experiencing, the hunter didn’t even notice when his feet began to move again, making his way along the last stretch of the hall before he was standing outside a set of double doors marked by a pair of simple crosses inlaid with gold.

It was a place deep within the bowels of the bunker seldom traversed by either of the brothers. Though he was fairly certain Sam snuck down there on the rare occasion he took his nose out of the lore, it was Cas who had adopted this place, seeking out its seclusion when he needed a place to contemplate.

The men who had built the bunker had been smart about its construction. They had made it completely self-sustaining in almost every way, from the magical energy source powering all of the circuitry, to the equally magical warding that kept them invisible and safe from every known baddie in the books. So it hadn’t been a surprise to find the underground grotto during their initial exploration of the Bunker.

Contained within it was a vast pocket of fresh groundwater which was laid over with thick heavy-duty lead glass that now served a floor for what had been built atop it. Somewhere deep in its obsidian depths was a pump whose presence was given away only by a deep whirring hum which blended into the background noise of dripping water and the faint oceanic whirl kids listened to in seashells. That single pump, presumably running on the same magical energy as the rest of the bunker, fed holy water into the main water tank to which every pipe in the bunker was connected.

Sam had been fascinated by the forethought and the execution of the design, but Dean had been far more interested in how they had managed to purify all the water. Possibly during a period of existential panic, the Men of Letters had built a chapel atop the glass, complete with rows of dark wooden pews, and a podium where sermons could be given. While the glass floor afforded the dramatic illusion that those who entered were ‘walking on water’, the rest of the chapel was simple in its elegance, if a tad bit eclectic.

It had looked to Dean as though the men who built the place had been trying to cover all their bases, just in case.

There were a variety of different religion’s idols which fit into gold-lined alcoves in the dark stone on either side of the pews, along with accompanying alters fit with marble basins for cleansing sacrament and blessings, incense burners and colorful candles. Dean himself remained decidedly unreligious despite everything, but he could appreciate that it was a pretty, quiet little spot, and he understood why Cas gravitated there.

Sure enough, when Dean poked his head around the door, his eyes immediately found Cas hunched over on the front most bench, head bowed and shoulders tense. Dean’s nose scrunched up involuntarily as he pushed himself further into the entry, taking the stone stairs down slowly. The air there was earthy and heavy with the odor of wet stone and minerals, but even here Dean could still see the faint shimmer of the smoke-like essence in the air. All around him was the consistent delicate echo of dripping water accompanied by the low hum of the pump far below the glass, but louder than either was the mournful euphony which Dean had followed there.

The moment his boots made contact with the glass, the sound abruptly ceased, and the air around him seemed to rush passed as if the visual shimmer was sucked back to where it had been seeping. The silence and the detectable change in pressure of the room left Dean feeling absurdly empty.

Cas didn’t seem to notice him as he made his way between down the aisle between the rows, and didn’t acknowledge him at all until Dean was seated next to him on the bench. Even then it was only with the fractional movement of his head toward the disturbance. The air was still and tense as though Dean approached the edge of a wide bottomless chasm. Sensing that Cas wasn’t going to give him an in, Dean leaned back against the pew with a sigh and crossed his arms.

“Hey.” He said quietly. “You bailed on us pretty quick back there. You okay?” He was aiming for casual though he felt anything but.

The faint whisper of strings drifted back into Dean’s ears, along with the cool tingling essence whose presence the hunter could only visually detect now by a faint reflective ripple. He swallowed thickly while he attempted to ignore it.

“No” Cas ground out bitterly, his hands hanging between his knees fisting tightly in frustration. “I don’t like this. I should be out there searching.”

“Cas,” Dean chided, “We've been over this--”

“Yes Dean, I know.” The angel snapped with a sardonic bite, whipping his head away from the hunter almost spitefully. “My safety is paramount to the success of this investigation.” 

Dean could have easily read between those lines even without Sam’s words earlier still pinging around in his head. 

_We both know that feeling Dean; angry, guilty, restless..._

“Look,” Dean began again, trying his best to sound gentle despite his own growing exhaustion fed irritation, “I get it, okay? You’re feeling less than useless sitting on your hands here. You wanna be out there doing the leg work. The research bit has always been more Sam’s department, and as much as I want to leave him to it, and follow you out there to gank the son of a bitch doing all of this, we just _can’t_ Cas. Coming back down to _that_ \--” He gestured vaguely toward the exit to indicate the scene at the park, “--it was way to close a call. Now, I’m sorry that we couldn’t help those kids, alright? But I’m not sorry you weren’t put in that things path. We’ve got better odds in figuring this out with you than without you. If you really want to help them, and I know you do, the best thing we can do--all of us-- is play this smart and safe. That means no flying off without a plan, no guesswork, no self-sacrifice; none of that shit has worked out in the passed. Are you with me?” 

“Cas?!” The hunter intoned firmly when the angel didn’t respond.

“I understand.” Cas finally relented, still sounding unconvinced. He refused to look at Dean.

Dean dropped a hand to the angel’s shoulder and physically made him turn to face him. “Cas man, you gotta promise me, okay? Promise me you aren’t going to disappear on me as soon as I look the other way.” When the angel still didn’t lift his head, Dean closed his eyes and used the last weapon in his arsenal. 

“Please.” 

It was so quiet but it hit Cas like a physical blow. The angel’s entire frame sagged and for a moment he seemed to hesitate but then slowly dragged doleful eyes back up to look at his friend. His expression was miserable but there was a resignation there that put Dean’s nerves at ease, at least those related to the angel’s flight risk.

“Yes, I promise Dean.” He murmured.

Without really thinking, the hand perched on the angel’s shoulder slid down to grasp his forearm in a comforting gesture of reassurance.

“And I promise _you_ , we are gonna find them.”

There was a faint flicker at the corner of the angel’s mouth that didn’t quite quirk upwards, but Dean felt the muscles beneath his hand relax and took that as a good sign. They held that gaze until Cas’s eyes flickered down to where Dean was still touching him, unconsciously tracing small circles over the angel’s wrist bone with the pad of his thumb. As if just realizing what he was doing, Dean snatched his hand away, returning it to the fold of his arms across his chest and looked decidedly anywhere else but at Cas.

“And...” Dean began haltingly, visibly uncomfortable, but powering through it. “I’m sorry. For earlier. It was shitty of me to lash out like that.”

Cas seemed to contemplate this for a moment before replying, “Thank you Dean, but you don’t need to apologize. I felt the same anger you did, but it was also directed at myself. It has been difficult to come to terms with how thoroughly my memory has been altered due to Naomi’s reprogramming.”

Dean’s chest tightened at the confession but he let his friend continue.

“I keep looking for ways to regain what she erased, to somehow become re-endowed with what was lost but I know that it’s merely wishful thinking.”

“Don’t dwell on it too hard,” Dean replied, “If what that Harut guy said was true, even the ones whose job it was to record stuff and _know things_ , don’t even know what the hell was going on. So you can’t assume you would have, even if you did have all those memories back. Besides, it’s more important now to focus on gathering new information and making new memories.”

The last sentence came out way more sentimental than he’d meant it to, but when Dean caught the faint smile that tugged at the angel’s lips, he found himself not caring so much. 

Several long moments passed in silence wherein Cas seemed to resume his hunched position on the bench and clasped his hands lightly together between his knees while he bowed his head forward. If he was praying, Dean pretended to be none the wiser. What he couldn’t pretend not to notice though, was the faint whisper of chiming bells that ghosted like phantom fingers over his forearms, his throat, his cheeks, his lips...

Bells, violin strings, claps of thunder, ice cracking, glass shattering, microphone feedback: His list of crazy shit seemed to be growing, but was it all really coming from Cas? He could voice it now, could ask his friend and the angel would no doubt be honest about it, but Dean remained stubbornly silent on the matter despite his apprehension of what it could mean; or maybe because of it. He released a quiet steadying breath as he settled back against the pew, his knees falling comfortably open, and retreated into his thoughts to mull it over. 

There were only two real possibilities here that the hunter could see.

Possibility number one: He was hallucinating. He had gone through years of being thrown around by demons, angels, and monsters. He’d suffered through the traumas of death and resurrection so many times he was numb to it. He’d been dragged out of hell, tossed out of heaven and clawed his way out of purgatory and now he was finally going off the deep end. The strange sensations and sounds were symptoms of his dwindling sanity finally snapping and Sam would have to toss him in the looney bin by this time next week for being a danger to himself and others...

Or possibility number two: He really was hearing Cas. Well...no, that wasn’t exactly right. He was hearing Castiel; Angel of the Lord. The powerful celestial being made of light and energy that Dean could barely comprehend existing outside of the weird little dude who he had come to know as his best friend. Castiel, the wavelength of divine intent whose true existence had been completely swept under the metaphorical rug with little in the way of acknowledgment beyond vague implications over the years. That is, until today, when it was thrust into the limelight with all the weird multi-dimensional matrix mumbo-jumbo Sam had been squawking about in Heaven.

Dean could feel the onset of an impending migraine pulse behind his eyes. He was too exhausted to be thinking down the ‘am I going crazy or is this some freaky angel shit’ rabbit hole and he wanted more than anything to shelve it for the time being, but his brain refused to cooperate.

_...because of the bond we share, it’s within the realm of possibility that Dean could hear it..._

The hunter mentally shook the phantom words away. Whether it was some crazy hallucination or a random, slightly terrifying, upgrade to whatever connection--he emphatically refused to call it a _‘profound bond’_ \--they shared, Dean had no idea, so he tried to push his waning mental energy into the territory of what he _did_ know. 

Whatever this was, he seemed to be the only one able to hear or feel it. Sam had admittedly not heard the buzzing or ringing in the hallway, and if the other angels heard the duel tone, or felt the charged air, they had given no indication. Maybe it was a common angel thing and they were all so used to it they didn’t bother reacting to it. Even Cas himself hadn’t acknowledged it beyond the vague recount of some weird mojo bleeding through a magical holy language.

Suddenly, the startling image of Harut’s intense unblinking stare struck him and it took all of his willpower not to visibly flinch. Dean had disliked both of the angelic brothers right off the bat but he had initially chalked that up to them being angels. After all, outside of Cas, Dean didn’t exactly have the best track record with them, especially after the stunt with Tessa. Until that moment in Hannah’s office, Dean had been content to consider them faces in the backdrop, but that had changed when Harut had singled him out like he _knew_. It was probably ridiculous to think some random second rate angel knew something the rest of the Heavenly Host had zero ideas about, but the hunter couldn’t shake his suspicion.

_Ugh. Okay Winchester, one freaky angel problem at a time. Put a pin in this one until you can talk to Sam about it. Pillar of support. Pillar of support._

He’d barely packed that disturbing thought away before he was struck by another, equally as significant and stressful as the first; If he _was_ hearing Cas’s true voice, what did that mean? And why now after all this time? He had known Cas for years without hearing so much as a peep minus the first overwhelming moment the angel had tried to speak to him in the gas station. What had changed besides being a solid mass of human in Heaven instead of a wispy soul? Was that all it had taken? Maybe he had been exposed to some funky divine radiation. Isn’t that how people got superpowers? 

Was he going to hulk out now when he got angry...or at least more than he already did now with the Mark?

More importantly; Whatever was happening, did Cas feel it too?

_...the bond we share..._

Dean risked a sidelong glance at the angel, thankful when he saw his eyes still closed in concentration. After a cursory scan, the hunter's eyes fell on the nearly imperceptible movement of his friend’s lips as they formed around silent syllables. As he watched, the sounds of chiming bells grew louder, and beneath them, a high pitched whine that grew in intensity as well. It was calming, soothing, and the hunter couldn’t look away.

“Dean?”

It took him a full second to process that Cas had spoken out loud. His mind felt fuzzy and muffled like cotton had been stuffed between his ears. His eyes seemed to lag as they rose up only to get lost in the depths of ocean blue as Cas sat up and half turned on the bench seat to look at his friend directly, concern written plainly across his face.

“Dean, are you alright?” Dean vaguely registered the feeling of Cas’s cool palm on his forehead, brushing his hair away as if to check his temperature. “You look flushed.”

“What were you saying?” Dean heard himself ask, but it sounded strange and far away. 

Cas blinked in confusion, his hand falling back to his lap and Dean mourned the loss of contact. “What?”

“Just now,” The hunter clarified, his arms slipping free from their contemplative fold, his hands smoothing over his jeans. “What were you saying?”

The angel looked torn between something like disbelief and timid curiosity before he replied, “You heard that?"

Dean hummed an acknowledgment. “It sounded like bells.”

“You’ve said something similar before.”

The memory of Cas speaking Enochian with Sam floated up in Dean’s mind, along with the ghost of sensations that had accompanied it. He swallowed hard before manning up and meeting his friend’s eyes. If they were going to have this talk, he would at least give Cas his full attention.

He regretted it almost immediately. The angel’s expression was intense like he was looking beyond the hunter’s physical body and staring directly into his soul. Dean realized with some belated sense of shock that he probably _was_ , and barely resisted the absurd impulse to cover himself with his hands. 

Then Dean felt something warm twine around and press against him. He could see that faint shimmer in the air again, but this time it was tinged a faint blue. He sat stock still, willing himself to stay calm, but the moment he felt the strange presence begin to press _into_ him he freaked right the fuck out.

“Cas?!” Dean yelped, jumping to his feet, “What the fuck man!?”

Dean felt completely scandalized and the sensation withdrew an instant later. Cas rose swiftly to his feet as well, his expression flipping from intensely scrutinizing to kicked-puppy apologetic in the span of a second.

“Dean I--”

“What the hell was that?!” Dean cut him off with a backward step, hearing and regretting the alarm in his tone before he could rein it back. He tore his eyes away from the angel's pained expression to take a shuddering breath, dragging a shaky hand over his face to regain his composure. “I need you to be straight with me Cas, I am freaking out over here.”

“It was my grace.” Cas confessed immediately, his back ramrod straight and his hands raised in a placative gesture, “I told you before that angels can reach out with their grace to examine something. That is all I was doing. I am sorry, I shouldn’t have done it without warning you.”

“Damn right!” Dean snapped but it came out far too shaky to be considered angry. He placed his hands on his hips and paced away just a few steps before turning back to Cas and leveling him with an expression of pure apprehension.

“Alright." He stated, cutting the air in front of him with one hand, “I’m only gonna ask you this one time, so it’s time to fess up.” He was trying for calm and firm, but only managed barely contained. “There has been some weird shit going on since we went to Heaven, and it only seems to be happening to us” He pointedly gestured between them to elaborate his meaning. “Tell me you feel it too and I’m not just going crazy.”

“You are not crazy Dean,” Cas said quickly, not wanting to further frighten his friend by beating around the bush. His hands dropped to his sides when Dean appeared to no longer be moments away from bolting from the room. “I do feel something different; I sensed the change the first moment it happened.”

Dean was taken aback,“ What? When you were talking to Sam?”

“No. Before.” When Dean’s brows furrowed together in confusion, Cas explained further, “When we followed after the escort and you lingered behind. I was...less than pleased about the situation. I knew that Hannah wouldn’t have risked you both for a trivial matter, but her lack of forthright information was...annoying." He trailed off, and if Dean hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the angel looked embarrassed. “Besides that, I was worried about how being physically in Heaven would affect you. I had asked you to risk it, so if anything happened to you it would have been my fault. Suffice to say I was frustrated and I...cursed...rather loudly.”

Dean instantly recalled the intense boom that had resonated through his chest like the aftershock of a massive firework, followed by the echo of prickling apprehension that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end accompanied by the thought; _humans were not made to physically enter Heaven_. He stared at his friend in disbelief.

“That was you?!”

Cas appeared sheepish of all things, looking away from Dean toward the podium. “Dean please believe me when I say I had no intention of frightening you. Until that moment, you had never had any sort of reaction to my voice.”

“And everything since then?” Dean demanded, “You told us that your true voice, or whatever, could bleed through the holy language, but unless Sam has gotten really good at understanding that crap, then you weren’t speaking that the entire time! So what gives with the thunder and the singing and the bells?”

“I’m not sure.” Cas answered honestly, trying and failing to meet his friend’s gaze, “This isn’t...typical...by any stretch Dean. Only prophets are supposed to be able to comprehend an angel’s true voice.” He did meet Dean’s stupified gaze then, his own eyes narrowing in that familiar way they did when he was trying to piece together something complicated. “It is odd that you describe it in different sounds but not words. Are sounds all you can perceive? Is there anything else? Can you feel it? Taste it?”

Dean couldn’t help the blush that crept over his face at the descriptive choices. “There--it--I saw some kind of weird shiny smoke one my way here and it _sounded_ like a violin or something.” It felt odd describing the appearance of a sound, but the hunter couldn’t think of another way to say it. Cas nodded along as if he understood, so he added, “It _felt_ like cool vapor.”

“Interesting,” Cas muttered, shifting half a step closer, his eyes roaming over the hunter’s body in a purely clinical fashion, though that didn’t stop his skin from heating up where his gaze touched. “There is a perceptual phenomenon that affects less than five percent of your species called synesthesia. Those who experience it report instances of senses becoming crossed, or linked together. For instance, you described _hearing, seeing_ and _feeling_ the vapor. This seems to be similar to that, only it's both of senses that seem to be getting crossed, as well as your own.”

“The bells too.” Dean interjected airily, “The bells felt like fingers on my--” He stopped short, his jaw audibly clicking shut before he could say _lips_. This was all a bit too much. Feeling his legs growing weaker, Dean took a seat back on the bench before he did something undignified like faint. For a brief moment he wondered if this is how Cas had felt earlier when he’d come across the sigil’s energy signature; just completely overwhelmed by the feeling.

Dean startled when he felt the weight of Cas’s hand settle gingerly over his knee. The touch was unsure and barely there at all, but it lit up the hunter’s nerves like a circuit board. He stared at angel’s hand for a beat longer than was probably normal before lifting his eyes up to his face.

“Dean, I understand that this must be overwhelming for you but try to understand: you and I have always shared a profound bond which has only grown stronger over the time we have known one another. However, beyond that, you are an incredibly perceptive man despite your instance to the contrary.” Without a response, Cas continued on, sliding closer until his knee folded up on the bench seat bumped into Dean’s where the angel’s hand still rested, his grip tightening by a fraction. “Consider this; How long have you been able to sense when I am near before I appear to you? How long have you been able to understand my intentions without words? I don’t know what catalyst triggered this sudden change in your perception Dean, but what I am fairly certain of is that whatever it was merely expounded on the nature that was already in place.”

“The gas station,” Dean stated quietly out of the blue.

Cas’s head tilted a fraction to the side, not following.

“That’s how long I've been able to feel you.” The hunter clarified just as quietly, too numb in the face of all of this new information to worry about how vulnerable he sounded. “Since the first time, you tried to speak to me. It was like being struck by lightning...”

Cas’s hand moved an inch up, squeezing the muscle just above Dean’s knee tightly, meaningfully.

“I remember.” Cas’s eyes dropped away from Dean’s, the words uttered in a tone so devastatingly low and rough it was little more than a growl. “I am sorry.”

If anyone were to ask, Dean Winchester would blame his next actions on friendly concern and sleep deprivation. He needed Cas to understand that, despite how terrifying it had been at the time, it was not an instance he regretted now.

With a hand that trembled only slightly, he reached out to his best friend and lifted his chin with gentle fingers. It was a testament to Cas’s own exhaustion that he didn’t show any sign that the gesture had caught him off guard or taken him by surprise. He very simply followed Dean’s lead; tipping his head back and blinked once slowly before he found the hunter’s eyes as Dean’s hand slid down until he grasped the back of the angel’s neck, the soft curls there tickling his fingers. 

Dean’s eyes flashed down to the angel’s lips, and Cas watched them with wonder, meeting them head-on when they swiveled back up, ocean blue crashing against lush earthy green. There was an eternity then where Cas could only hear his own heart beating impossibly loud and he wondered briefly if Dean, with his newly enhanced perception, could hear it as well.

Then Dean was leaning in, while applying gentle pressure to the back of Cas’s neck, guiding him forward. 

They were close enough Cas could feel the hunter’s breath on his lips.

Then quite suddenly, Dean turned his head at the last moment and instead of a kiss, he pulled the angel into a one-armed embrace. Cas sat frozen, his eyes wide and unblinking with his forehead pressed into Dean’s shoulder, the hunter’s hand still gripping the back of his neck.

Above him, Dean’s own eyes were wide with panic as he tried to control his breathing so as not to give himself away. Cas was filling up his senses. All around him, the warmth of Cas’s grace hovered but didn’t dare to touch him, it’s silvery blue shimmer blinking in and out like sunlight on water. Every breath carried with it the sharp scent ozone and a fresh crisp taste like winter wind and mint. Above it, all was the high pitched whine that now seemed tinged with distress and uncertainty, but Dean’s own frantic heartbeat nearly drowned it out.

Dean had almost kissed him

Holy shit. Holy fuck. Holy shit.

Dean had almost _kissed him._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to all of you that have been so patiently waiting for this next chapter! I wrote it, then re-wrote it, then deleted it all and re-wrote it again so I hope this final draft will be to your liking. Things will be picking up from here on out so hold on to your pants.

By some miracle, Dean was able to untangle himself from Cas without giving away the complete and utter panic that was currently flooding his senses. Thankfully his brain quickly provided context to justify what had just happened.

It was just a hug, that’s all. Nothing more to see here. Hugs weren’t that big a deal. He had hugged the angel before. Hugs were a known and recognized means of communication between them, albeit usually reserved for life or death situations, but hey, who was really keeping track? Besides, Sam had told him to be a pillar of support and when friends were in need of support, they hugged, so it was totally normal. In fact, as he released the angel from the awkward embrace, he thought he did a rather spectacular job at playing it cool.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He assured the angel in response to his earlier apology. “Not your fault I couldn’t understand angel-speak back then. Besides, this-” He gestured between them to indicate their shared experience, “-is kinda cool. It’s like a secret code; something just between us.”

Only after the words left his mouth did Dean realize what he said. Cas simply peered at him with those bottomless ocean eyes, his head falling just a fraction to the side; intent and searching.

With his face burning, Dean hopped up from the bench with no other obvious reason than to escape their proximity. He tried to cover this by stretching his back and rolling his shoulders, but as he turned back to face his friend he knew it was a transparent attempt.

To his credit Cas remained sitting on the bench as still as stone, only his eyes moving to follow the hunter. Despite Dean’s efforts to appear casual, Cas could sense the tension manifold in the air and witnessed in real-time the hunter’s complete retreat from it. This wasn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. The hunter withdrew from any situation which he deemed too intimate or emotionally demanding more times than the angel could count. It was his nature, but that never made it sting any less.

_Please stay._

The silent plea pulsed through his grace before he could stop it and their eyes locked as they both realized what had happened at the same time.

“Listen Cas,” Dean began a bit helplessly but had to clear his throat against the lump of emotion that had inexplicably crawled up and stuck there before continuing. “It’s been a long day, you know? I’m beat, you're beat; think we can put this on hold until after I catch a few hours?”

It’s sounded so casual, so natural and unassuming, but Cas could feel that it was a front and he felt surprisingly...hurt.

_Don’t leave._

The angel bowed his head, feeling whip-lashed and overwhelmed as they both pretended not to feel his longing.

“Of course,” he replied automatically, his tone flat.

_I don’t want to be alone._

Though Dean couldn’t see the shimmer of Cas’s grace like he had before, he could feel it retracting past him like a cool breeze; more of a disturbance in the air than a physical sensation. He made no comment about it this time. Instead, he kept his damn mouth shut, something he should have done from the beginning. Stupid Sam and his stupid support speech.

“Right" Dean muttered, lingering for a heartbeat before turning away. "Night buddy.” He added over his shoulder as an afterthought and mentally cringed at how terrible it sounded as he headed for the exit.

He felt like a damn coward.

The angel winced at the platonic term of address, lifting his gaze back up just as the heavy doors swung shut.

“Sleep well, Dean.” He muttered to the empty chapel.

 

* * *

 

Once out of sight, all pretense of composure completely dissolved and Dean had to reach out to the wall to steady himself.

_What the hell was that all about? Were you really about to play Don Juan with an angel in a freaking chapel? That is twisted on so many different levels--_

His self-flagellation is interrupted when the haunting cry of violin strings drifts up from the chapel. His hand on the wall balls into a fist. It was softer than before, stifled like a secret. Instead of mournful is sounded...resigned. The urge to turn around and go back down there was immediate and intense but the hunter resisted. He straightened his back, set his shoulders, both hands now fists at his sides and willed himself to march forward. Cas just needed some space right now, that’s all this was.

It had nothing to do with him.

He trudged on, ignoring the pull in his chest connected to that sound. Heat rushed to his face, the image of the ‘almost kiss’ bubbling to the surface of his mind despite his attempts to squash it. He doubled his pace, scrambling down the hall to put some much-needed distance between them as if he could outrun the thought if he moved fast enough. It was just a lapse in judgment. They were both dead tired and on edge. Cas hadn't even reacted. He probably hadn't even realized what happened--NOT that anything had happened.

At that moment his brain unhelpfully supplied the memory of Cas following his lead without resistance. The mark on his arm flared and burned unexpectedly, a malicious voice lashing out from within. _It doesn't matter, he's an angel and you...What the hell are you compared to him? An ape, a speck of dust, a fucking blip in time. It didn't mean anything and you're pathetic and delusional if you think otherwise._

His throat constricted with emotion, but he bit it back harshly.

_It didn’t mean anything._

That was the mantra in his head as he made his way back into the bunker proper. He stalked back to his room, his footfalls loud and he made no attempt to quiet them. He felt irritated and strung out despite his exhaustion and it was pissing him off. After this shitty fucking day, he wanted nothing more than to sink into that beautiful memory foam and pass out into oblivion for a few hours but the closer he got to his room, the more tension he felt. The mark on his arm seared. He saw red at the edges of his vision. There was anger--there was always anger when the mark was involved--but there was something else too and when finally his door came into view, he felt so tightly wound he thought would snap.

He felt like he needed to fight or--NOPE. He cut that thought off at the knees before it could even fully form.

Heedless of the late hour, Dean slammed the door and then thudded heavily back against it, the wood paneling biting into his shoulder blades providing a momentary distraction. The pain helped to calm the anger, but his nerves still felt over sensitive and electrified. Even his clothing felt like it was constricting and stifling him. With an angry growl, he shoved himself off the door and trudged further into the room, wrenching his shirts up over his head without bothering to unbutton the flannel.

The cool air of the room on his bare skin was a welcome reprieve, but it was nowhere near enough. He glared at the wad of fabric clenched tightly in his hands as if it had been a conspirator in his predicament before chucking it at his dresser where it hit the wood with a muffled thwap only to land in a heap on the floor.

_Don’t leave. Please Stay. I don’t want to be alone._

The words had been ethereal bells; the sound of Cas’s true voice, but he had understood them in that moment like he hadn’t when he’d first heard them while the angel prayed. It was like he understood the meaning because the sentiment had been shared which was mind-meltingly confusing. If it was shared then that meant that they both wanted to be together and the hunter was not at all prepared to deal with that possibility.

Frustrated, Dean fumbled with his belt before dropping his pants and kicked them petulantly away along with his boots and socks. Then, without further ado, he promptly dropped on to his bed and shoved his face into his pillow.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut in an attempt to block everything out, but of course, it was to no avail. No matter how he tried to dodge it, everything that had been shoved into the back of his mind for months was now starting to crash down around him. This missing-angel case was a catalyst, shoving the truth in his face with every new revelation. They needed to connect all these grisly clues to move forward, but right now they had nothing, they knew nothing. Then having more angels disappear right out from under them…

His thoughts continued to spiral.

If this thing could get into Heaven and back to earth in no time at all, did that mean it could get anywhere? He was paralyzed by the idea that Cas could be in danger, even here in the safety of the bunker--No.

No. It was safe here. Dean had to believe Cas was safe here or he’d lose it. They had always been safe here. The bunker was warded against every supernatural creature in existence; angels, demons it didn’t matter.

His fingers twisted in his pillow. All of that alone would have been more than overwhelming, but then there was this thing that was happening to him; because nothing could ever be just cut and dry. He had no idea what had triggered it, but whatever unique connection he had already had with the angel was being enhanced and it was making him _feel things._ There was just nowhere to run anymore, no walls he could erect, no defense he could mount.

He was cornered and he knew it.

.For a split second, all of his racing thoughts stilled and went quiet, before the simple truth, whose seeds had taken root long before the hunter had ever realized what they were, finally bloomed in its entirety for the first time.

_I have feelings for Cas._

Dean cracked his eyes open to squint into the darkness of his room, before exhaling in a long sigh a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Mercifully, a bit of tension seeped out of his shoulders. Rolling said shoulders, the hunter then flopped moodily onto his back, one arm stretched haphazardly across the mattress while the other was bent and draped across his forehead. He felt ridiculous for hiding his face even though there was no one around to see it beat red after the private personal admission. After a moment, he lowered the arm to rest over his stomach, his eyes still closed, taking stock.

Okay. So…

...so...

... he had feelings for his best friend…

...who was an angel…

...in a dude’s meat suit.

Agitated, Dean opened his eyes to glare at the dark ceiling and sighed long sufferingly. Alright, well, the world hadn’t ended with that tiny bit of honesty with himself so that was a plus. Jesus, introspection was exhausting, but at least he would be able to sleep now...

...or at least that’s what he kept telling himself as ten sleepless minutes ticked by.

The only light in the room was afforded by the hallway light which seeped in from under the door. The quiet and the relative darkness should have been relaxing, his memory foam should have been comfortable enough to coax him to sleep, but even after the internal chick flick moment was all said and done with, his mind was still full of access energy. He grits his teeth in frustration, his mind still rebelling until, at long last, he relented and allowed it to wander back to what he knew was really distracting him.

He inhaled slowly, his limbs finally relaxing as he recalled Castiel in the chapel.

_Prayers that swept across his lips like kisses._

_Warm grace on his skin like rays of sunshine._

The hunter released a soft sigh, his fingers twitching near his navel as he closed his eyes in concentration.

It had alarmed him before he’d known what it was and he did regret lashing out in fear like he had--he’d apologize for that when he saw Cas next--but thinking back on it, it really hadn’t been so bad. Under different circumstances, it might have even been kind of nice.

An unexpected wave of heat rolled over him at the implications of that, followed promptly by a sharp stab of shame. He bit his lip against the knee jerk response to the thoughts but instead of pushing them away as he had so many times before, he allowed himself to rifle through them. He meandered from image to image until he hovered shyly around the intense memory of their ‘almost kiss’, never looking at it directly as a whole, but recalling the sensations one at a time.

_The warmth of the angel’s skin in the palm of his hand._

_The softness of the dark hairs beneath his fingers._

_Tired, heavily lidded eyes, fathomless blue at once both archaic and vibrant._

_Pink lips parted, wanting to speak but stricken silent._

_Hot breath on his lips..._

The hunter inhaled sharply as the fingers resting near his navel skimmed just under the waistband of his boxers.

_God, we were so close._

Heat pooled in his groin, his fingers setting his nerves ablaze as they moved lower.

_What if I had just--?_

So lost in his revery, he almost didn’t notice a subtle movement near the door, but the momentary flicker of light across his eyelids set him on alert. His hand flew away from his boxers like he’d been caught in the act before it even began. Shoving himself up on his elbows, his breathing still quick and shallow, he fixed his wide-eyed gaze at the bottom of the door where the light was obscured by two shapes which cast long spidery shadows across the floor to the foot of his bed.

Someone was standing just outside the door.

The hunter held his breath as he watched the shadows. There was no movement. Shit, had he been loud enough earlier to wake Sam up? Or was it...Cas? Oh god. His heart thundered painfully against his rib cage. What if he’d felt something through this new freaky bond thing they had going on. Shit, he hadn’t even thought about that before diving in. Jesus, he was such a moron. He could feel his face quickly filling with the hot blood that was currently draining out of his dick. This was not how he wanted the angel to find out.

He paused, momentarily surprised at himself. When had he decided that he wanted Cas to find out at all?

_Fuck, come on man, focus!_

As he reprimanded himself, his eyes were drawn to more movement by the door. The two shadows were moving away. It wasn’t particularly unusual for Cas to be roaming the hallways at this hour, though Dean had been sure the angel would have at least relaxed into a trance or something after the day they’d had. What did strike him as unusual though was how quiet he was.

Dean was so used to the muffled clack of his dress shoes and rustling of the stiff fabric of his trench coat that the silence in the wake of the angel walking away was unsettling. More than a little uneasy, the hunter swung his legs over the side of the bed and stepped toward the door.

He turned the knob slowly and cracked the door to peek his head out into the hallway.

There was no one there.

He stepped out a bit further, glancing all the way down one side of the hall, then the other, but there was no trace that anyone had been there at all. Weird. Knowing Cas, if the angel had heard him get up, he might have felt like he was intruding and zapped away. Yet, Dean couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. So, as he stood out in the hall clad only in his boxers, he went through the checklist despite being in the bunker where it shouldn't matter; no sulfur smell, no cold spots--at least no colder than usual given that they were encased in cement underground--and no weird electromagnetic heebie-jeebies.

Despite the lack of anything, it was the lack of anything that kept him uneasy.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the fluorescent light at the end of the hall flickered once. It was only for the briefest moment, but Dean could have sworn that the momentary shadow had been a solid mass.

However, in the next blink, the light was humming once again at full brightness, illuminating the area as completely as if nothing had changed. Dean ran a hand over his face once before glaring hard at the end of the hallway, searching for anything that could be considered out of place. When nothing else happened after a full minute, he chalked it up to frayed nerves and exhaustion. All at once, he felt his earlier arousal fueled energy wane and his entire body sagged. With one last cursory glance around the hall, he stepped back into his room and shut the door with a quiet click.

Once again, Dean fell heavily onto his bed and pressed his face into his pillow, but this time he was out cold within minutes of closing his eyes and silence fell over the bunker.

Then, at the end of the hall, the ceiling light flickered once again, before illuminating completely. Then in slow succession, one right after the other, each section of the hallway lights began to flicker before returning to normal, making a line right to the hunter’s door. For a moment, two shadows once again stretched across the floor toward the bed, before all at once, every light in the hallway blinked out.

 

* * *

 

Castiel had lingered in the chapel for a long while after Dean had left. He felt as though he had been drawn and quartered for all the twists and turns his nerves had taken over the course of the day. The angel pressed his face into his hands, the sandpaper scrape of his stubble biting into his palms helping to ground him.

Missing angels, a gruesome crime scene, another disappearance right under their noses, and now this new development with Dean; as if all of the former weren’t enough to deal with. He dropped his hands and stood up to face the pulpit, his eyes lingering on the simple wooden cross which stood somberly against the granite wall. Despite his earlier promise to Dean made against his better judgment, the angel was still restless. Without taking action there was little more he could do than speculate and worry.

He bowed his head in rumination, attempting to corral his racing thoughts when he suddenly felt a rush of heat overtake him. Blue eyes snapped open against the onslaught, the breath in his lungs escaping in a startled gasp. Vivid images and sensations flooded through his senses without his prompting;

_The warmth of calloused hands on his skin..._

_The light tug of fingers in his hair._

_Half-lidded green eyes warm and tender in the dim light._

_Pink lips parted, wanting to speak but stricken silent._

_Hot breath on his lips…_

The angel caught himself against the side of the pew, his grip hard enough to make the wood squeal and groan in protest. His heart gave a painful jolt as his pulse spiked, his ears and cheeks burning. His breathing was labored as he tried to focus passed the heat pooling low in his stomach and almost succeeded until a very familiar and very clear voice rang out inside his head;

_...So close. What if we had just..._

Then just as suddenly as it had come on, the feeling vanished as though it had never been, though Castiel was left with the very physical evidence of its presence. He stayed leaning against the pew, his entire frame trembling as he took stock of himself. He bit back a bitter shame at how tight his slacks felt. After a ten count, the angel inhaled deeply and exhaled in one slow breath, but it didn’t help to calm him as it usually did.

There was an unease quickly filling up the empty hollowness left in the wake of the heat, and a cold sense of foreboding washed over him like ice water. A minute later he was taking the stairs up out of the chapel two at a time and sprinting back into the bunker proper, coming to a skidding halt in the library. He leaned over with his hands splayed against a table, eyeing the room suspiciously while he caught his breath. The strange feeling had since eased, but not entirely and it put him on edge; it felt familiar but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t his own exhausted mind playing tricks on him.

All was still and silent. Once his breathing was back to normal, the angel stepped away from the table and made his way toward the back hallway where all the bedrooms were located. He felt silly really, but he walked on regardless, needing to see the brothers sleeping and safe for his own peace of mind.

The unease returned tenfold when he arrived at the hallway. The lights above him flickered once, before returning to normal. He glanced back behind him where the lights were on and humming quietly at full brightness before swallowing thickly and making his way down the hall. His angel blade slid down into his waiting palm out of instinct as he approached Sam’s door; the closest to him from the direction he’d come. Without hesitation, he lifted his hand to the knob and silently pushed the door open just enough for a beam of light to illuminate the foot of the younger hunter’s bed.

Sam was sleeping and snoring lightly which eased a bit of the tension out of Castiel’s posture. He couldn’t help the brief twitch at the corner of his mouth a the sight. With a final cursory glance around the room, the angel stepped back and closed the door as silently as he’d opened it before releasing a sigh of relief. He looked at the blade in his hand for a long moment before sheathing it once again and making his way toward Dean’s door.

The earlier heat bubbled weakly under his skin but he tamped it back down. He was just checking in on the hunter, the same as he had done with Sam. That was all.

He lingered outside the door this time, apprehensive.

_Just checking._

_Just making sure._

He grasped the knob and turned before he can lose his nerve. The treacherous door made a small whine as it opened and Cas froze for a breath, listening. When no sound came from inside, he mustered the courage to step one foot over the threshold and peered in.

His breath caught in his throat.

Dean was sprawled across his bed on his stomach clad in just his boxers with one arm curled around his pillow where his face was buried. He too was snoring softly.

The angel released a quiet sigh of relief. Both brothers were safe and sleeping soundly. This time, he did smile as he looked on and thought that perhaps he should be resting as well. He was about to turn away to leave and do just that when his sensitive ears caught a small breathy sound from the bed. He glanced back toward the sleeping hunter who had shifted just a bit, not sure if he had heard correctly. The angel’s mouth went dry as he watched the muscles of Dean’s bare back roll and settle into the new position.

“Cas.”

He was correct. The breathy sound had been his name.

The hunter’s brow furrowed and for a heart-stopping moment Castiel thought he’d been caught, but Dean’s eyes remain closed. His muscles rippled and tensed, his legs shifted just slightly, his head turned further into the pillow. Castiel could sense the tension, he could hear the hunter’s increased heart rate, he could visibly see the shift of emotion across his features but the angel was rooted to his spot unable to do anything but watch the expanse of exposed skin move as the hunter dreamed.

An echo of the heat in the chapel flickered over his nerves causing his own heartbeat to pick up. This was wrong. He knew he should leave, but then Dean growled his name again, distress clear in his tone and the angel’s legs were suddenly moving on their own, not away as he intended but further into the room leaving the door ajar behind him.

He didn’t notice the hallway lights flicker again.

Cas had eased Dean’s nightmares many times over the years, mostly without the hunter being any the wiser. He let himself believe it was for Dean’s own sake; that he eased what suffering he could for his best friend, but the truth was far more selfish. He went to Dean’s side and observed him for a moment. Dean made another agitated noise but the words were indecipherable. The feeling of unease returned stronger there than it had been in the hall.

Cas realized all at once that it was emanating from Dean himself.

To test a theory, Cas allowed the feeling to sink into him, manipulating his grace to inspect it. Sure enough, it seemed to catch hold and maintain a connection. It was Dean’s soul he’d felt, just as the hunter had felt his grace earlier. He should have recognized it sooner, after all, it wasn’t the fact that he could feel the hunter’s soul that was new. It was the fact that he had not consciously made the connection that was strange.

Since the angel had pulled him out of hell he could always tune into Dean, but the hunter had quickly created a boundary that he studiously and viciously maintained. He did not like Cas in his head, and he had made it a point to be incredibly clear about it not happening ever under no circumstances baring imminent pain of death and even then only as a last resort.

Yet, there Cas stood, without having opened up a connection with Dean’s own soul reaching out to him. If this continued, the dynamics of their friendship would suffer, of that he was sure. Dean Winchester was many things, but a sharer was not one of them. Such an intimate connection would intimidate him, make him wall up, put distance between them...and that was the last thing Castiel wanted.

Dean’s fingers twisted in his pillow, the muscle in his jaw jumping against the strain of tension from the nightmare, and Cas didn’t waste any more time as he reached down to brush his fingers against the hunter’s temple, determined to ease whatever horrors he was mired in but the moment his skin made contact, his celestial energy is hurled across the dimensional divide between the waking world and the dream world.

~~~

 

**When Cas next opened his eyes he was staring at a very angry Dean Winchester, apparently having just been dropped in amidst the throes of a vicious verbal argument. One glance around the room informed him that Dean’s subconscious had placed them in a manifestation of the bunker’s library so realistic that Cas found himself disoriented despite knowing that he was in a dream.**

**Movement from the front had his eyes darting back to the hunter just in time to witness his thunderous approach. Dean was flushed with anger, his breathing labored with the losing attempt to control his temper. The terrible memory of the last time Dean advanced on him like this in the bunker flashed across his mind and Cas found himself raising his hands in defense only to discover that in one hand he had grasped a piece of parchment that looked as though it had been ripped from an old lore book. In the other, he seemed to be brandishing his own angel blade.**

**A brief glance indicated that the diagram and words on the page depicted some sort of weapon made from God’s Light, but there was no time to examine it further before the hunter was upon him, ripping the paper from his hand and throwing it aside before hastening to disarm him. The blade gave a loud clank against the floor before skidding away. Dean took up to two handfuls of Cas’s coat and manhandled the angel into the nearest bookshelf sending old volumes tumbling to the floor. His eyes were bright with rage. The dream around him rippled with his fury. Cas could see his soul pulse a raw and wild red, the heat of it burning as it pressed up against his grace.**

**It had all happened so quickly the angel’s mind was still catching up. This was not what he had been expecting. Alarmed and more than overwhelmed, Cas attempted to wrestle Dean off of him, succeeding only insofar as pushing them back off the bookshelf, but the hunter still gripped him tightly even as the angel pried at his fingers.**

**“You promised!” Dean snarled, shaking him harshly as one hand left the lapel of his coat to fist into his shirt collar and tie. The angel grit his teeth against the burn of fabric biting into his throat. They both grunted and growled as they fumbled and tousled for leverage. In the struggle, Cas’s elbow caught Dean in the brow by mistake, and with a hiss of pain the hunter finally backed off and they broke apart, both panting heavily from the physical exertion of the altercation.**

**Cas straightened up first, pulling at his collar and tie to loosen them as he eyed the hunter warily, ready to defend himself against another attack should the need arise, but Dean simply met his glare head-on. The hunter swept his fingers against his bloody brow, hissing through his teeth when they skimmed over the cut just above his left eye. His green eyes were intensely luminescent. His soul was the embodiment of flame. Both are fixed on Cas as blood blooms from the wound and drips down the side of his face.**

**“Dean,” Cas began, his voice hoarse. “This is not what you think--”**

**“Yeah right.” Dean barked, cutting him off. He stooped to grab the forgotten page on the floor before he rose up and waved it harshly in the angel’s face. “This isn’t what I think, huh?”**

**Castiel smoothed down his wrinkled coat, his mind racing. He needed to tell Dean that he was real and that this was all a nightmare he had been trying to sooth. “Dean please, let me explain--”**

**“Explain what Cas!?” Dean bellowed, the paper crunching as he clenched his fist around it. “Your brilliant fucking idea to fly off in the middle of the night without us being any the wiser?!” His arms flew around him in a frenzy to emphasize his anger “What if that thing got to you? What if it got you and I never saw you again, huh? Did you even think about what that would do to me?”**

**Cas opened his mouth to assure Dean that he did not in fact plan on breaking his promise, but the last sentence caused the words to die on his tongue. The hunter advanced on him once again, slower this time, and Cas found himself backing away under the hunter’s intense gaze, attempting to read his body language before another struggle broke out. He hadn’t realized how far he’d retreated until he bumped up against the edge of one of the library tables. The lighting suddenly shifted as the table lamp shuddered and tipped over.**

**Dramatic shadows rose up behind Dean like looming demons, but Castiel couldn’t look away from his face.**

**_‘He doesn’t know it’s you.’_ The rational part of his mind alerts him.**

**Dean reached up to place one hand on each of the angel’s shoulders, his anger seeming to leave him all at once. His face took on a solemn expression. His gaze never wavered from the angel’s own, the green so vibrant and certain it stole his breath.**

**_‘He thinks he’s dreaming.’_ **

**The hunter’s fingers twisted in the loose fabric of his coat sleeves and pulled him forward.**

**_‘You have to stop this.’_ **

**Dean kissed him soundly, solidly. His fingers were wound tight in his coat like they had been while they struggled earlier, but Cas didn't try to pry them off this time. He didn't try to do anything this time, too shocked by what was happening to even breathe. A moment later, Dean was bearing down on him, taking advantage of the few inches he had on the angel to push him back against the table, forcing him to use his hands to catch himself and further shoving the lamp aside.**

**The shadows rose up higher allowing the walls and bookshelves.**

**Castiel didn't notice the shadows engulf everything not touched by the light and blackout the background out to nothingness, distracted as Dean’s hands slid off his coat to fumble beneath it. He caught the angel by the waist and pulled his body close while pressing in close to him, forcing his knees to shift apart to allow the hunter to rest between them. Finally, Cas responded but he was helpless to do anything other than melt into the hunter’s touch.**

**Dean pulled back after several intense moments only to rest his forehead against Cas’s, the two breathing each other’s air for a time before the hunter spoke again.**

**“Get it now?” He asked between panting breaths. “If anything happened to you because I wasn’t giving my all right beside you...I don’t think I could survive that. I _need_ you Cas.”**

**Cas met Dean’s eyes then and he felt the enormity of the admission like a physical blow, the potency of its sincerity a warm heady sensation that flooded through him in a rush, leaving him feeling dazed and dizzy. This was a dream and Dean didn’t know that he was real. He had no idea that Cas was really hearing him, really experiencing this moment but despite the shame he felt about those realities, it that didn’t change the fact that it was the truth; a truth he could feel emanating from the depths of the hunter’s soul.**

**Then, in his periphery, a movement caught his eye. In the shadow just behind Dean’s left shoulder, at the level of his bloody brow, was a face with eight red eyes.**

**Castiel’s blood turned to ice and he was promptly thrown out of the dream.**

**~~~**

 

The next moment he opened his eyes, he was standing above Dean’s bed just as he had been before, but across from him, in the darkness of the room, was the face from the dream. For a moment or perhaps an eternity he was frozen like a prey animal.

A second later he was shouting to alert the hunter to the danger but didn’t make it to the end of his name before a terrible mouth full of needlepoint teeth opened in four horrifying sections and spat some sort of fluid into his face. He stumbled backward, crashing into the dresser on the other side of the room, pain like he’d never felt before searing into his eyes and throat. It not only blinded and gagged him on this physical plane, but it seeped into his grace like an ethereal venom, forcing it to retract into his core. He could only cough fruitlessly and wheeze around the burn.

The partial shout had woke Dean first, but it was the crash of something in his room that propelled him into a sitting position, the gun under his pillow drawn and aimed in the dark but he froze instantly in terror at the sight of the creature hovering over his bed.

It was tall and bent abnormally at its boney waist to avoid bumping into the ceiling. It’s long neck twisted unnaturally, it’s black face upside down as it stared across the room with eight blood-red eyes fixed on something else in the dark. When Dean inhaled sharply, it jerked its head to look at him, mouth partially open and dripping with a familiar-looking yellowish goo.

Dean’s body moved before his mind caught up, instinct taking place of rational thought. He let off three rounds into the things face, but it seemed to melt into the darkness around him without being injured.

“Dean, close your eyes!” Came a choking rasp of a shout in the dark before light began to emanate from near his dresser. He recognized the voice instantly and immediately turned his face away to shield his eyes as the room suddenly burst into a blinding array of white light.

Dean heard every light bulb and piece of glass in the room explode at once. The door blew off its hinges. The light from the hallway lights flared and flooded the room right before they too burst. The only light afforded after was the constant blink of red light from the bunker’s security system. Dean risked a look up only when he heard Cas stumbling out of his room, groaning in pain. The hunter jumped up from the bed to follow, the flashlight from his bedside drawer flickering over the path the angel had taken, only to stop short when he saw the trail of blood and yellow ooze left in his wake.

His heart stopped.

No.

He thought of the corroded stone and rotting flowers in Eden.

No no no no no no.

Carefully avoiding the trail of fluids with his bare feet, Dean made his way quickly out into the darkened hall, shouting for Cas the whole time. Sam, illuminated by the flashing red lights of the alarm, met him at the corner, his own gun out and at the ready. Dean doesn’t stop and they keep moving through the bunker together.

“What the hell is going on?!” Sam shouted over the bunker’s blaring alarm.

“It’s here!” Dean spat back, “That thing, it’s after Cas!”

“What?!” Sam was obviously just as shocked as he was. “But how did it find him? This place is warded against everything!”

An agonized shriek from the library had Dean in a sprint. Sam yelled after him, barely able to keep up but Dean didn't hear him. Sam, the alarms, even his own footfalls fade into noise as he arrived in time to witness Castiel fall to his knees before the creature Dean had seen in his room.

Time slows to a crawl.

The creature stood in the center of the same sigil which had been at both crime scenes. Cas knelt facing the hunter, blood and yellow slime dripping from his eyes nose and mouth.

“Dean!” The angel cried out, broken and terrified.

“Cas!” Dean bellowed in response, bolting forward just as Sam arrived at the scene. “I’m here! hold on! I’m coming!”

The creature, now standing at its full height under the high ceiling of the library, turned it’s face to Dean. Right side up it looked almost like a man, extremely emaciated, with black leathery skin pulled tight over bone. Its whole body was gaunt hollows and sharp angles. It was decorated from head to foot with an immense array of tattooed symbols and geometric scars. Without breaking eye contact with the hunter, it reached down and twisted a gnarled fist into the front of Cas’s shirt, holding him up as he suddenly slumped to the side, his muscles seeming to give out all at once. He looked like a downed deer; like prey.

Acid rose in Dean’s throat at the sight.

The mark on his arm seared like it never had before, his vision blanketed in blood red.

“Let him go!” He roared, his voice inhuman but a deep, echoing rumble emanating from every direction drew a primal fear out of him despite his anger; a fear that gripped his very soul. The sound was ancient and terrifying with a taunting edge; it was laughing at him.

The sigil at its feet began to glow.

Dean lept at them, his hand closing around Cas’s sleeve one moment, only to find himself crashing to the ground on the other side of the sigil the next moment. He skidded painfully along the wood floor before jumping back to his feet.

He spun around to find only empty air behind him.

Sam stood with wide eyes on the opposite side of the sigil, staring at the spot Cas had been just a moment before. On the floor, the wood was corroded and rotted where the sigil had been laid, as well as at the center where Cas’s blood and the ooze coating him had pooled under his limp body.

It was the only evidence that he had been there at all.

Dean's body convulsed. He could only see red. There was a deafening ringing in his ears that muffled all the sound around him. He felt his heart stumble back to life at a breakneck pace, thumping painfully in his chest as he searched wildly around the room for his angel. Beyond the ringing he could just make out a furious desperate roar and didn’t realize it was his own until Sam was grabbing at him, trying to stop him from hurting himself in his frenzy.

Finally, Sam got a solid hold of him, circling his arms around his brother.

“Dean.” He uttered in a broken, shell shocked tone.

Dean couldn’t hear him.

“Dean!” Sam barked louder, firmer. “He’s gone!”

The words only proved to make it worse, but Sam’s hold was like iron. Dean tore at his brother's shirt, at once pulling him in and trying to shove him off. It took a few frantic minutes but eventually, the older hunter relented, slumping against his little brother as his knees finally gave out.

They both slid to the floor.

“Let go, Sam, we have to--” Dean began weakly, but his brother interrupted.

“He’s gone, Dean.” Sam murmured quickly in a voice that trembled because if he lingered on what he saw too long he might lose it too. “Dean, I saw him disappear. You went right through him. He’s gone.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so slight detour. This chapter was supposed to explain what the antagonist was and some of its background but the natural flow didn't allow for that, so stay tuned for that. For now, have some emotional Dean and a surprise guest character!

For the duration of the first day after Cas had been taken, both brothers were left in a state of shock. Neither slept, running on coffee and the short few hours sleep they’d stolen before the events of the early morning had thrust them into the high stress of the current situation. Sam set up shop in the library as soon as he could, wasting no time in pouring himself into the research aspect as a means of coping.

 

To his credit, once he'd gotten a handle on himself, Dean was right beside him but he wasn’t nearly as adept at diving in. Though he’d calmed down significantly, his nerves were completely shot. Not only was he worried about his friend but his sense of safety in the bunker was fundamentally shaken. Despite his best efforts, he was twitchy and restless. When he wasn’t rereading the same sentence half a dozen times, he was up and pacing under the pretense of searching for different books. By the sixth time he was up and out of his chair, Sam finally intervened.

 

The younger hunter dropped his pencil with a curt sigh before he spoke up in that same piteous tone he used on traumatized witnesses. “Dean,” He began meaningfully. “Maybe you should try and get some rest.”

 

“I’m fine.” Dean bit back.

 

Another sigh was accompanied by a mild bitch face. “You’re not fine Dean. You’ve been on the same page of that lore book for the past hour because you haven’t been able to sit still long enough to get any reading done.”

 

Sam could see the flare of emotion his reply sent rippling through his brother so he quickly backtracked to avoid an argument. “Look, I’m not blaming you man, I’m just saying I get it. You’re all over the place because you’re worried. I’m worried too but neither of us are going to get anywhere while you’re like this.”

 

When Dean remained stubbornly silent, Sam went in for the final push. He leaned back in his chair to give his brother his full attention, his expression open and sincere.

 

"We can't risk overlooking something small. Just let me take over for a while. I promise I'll come find you if anything comes up."

 

The 'if' didn't escape Dean's notice but he ignored it because it made his eyes sting dangerously. He felt equal parts defensive and helpless but he wasn't about to stay where he wasn't wanted and if he shut the book he'd been staring at for the last hour a little harder than necessary Sam didn't mention it.

 

Instead, he just said, "We'll find him, Dean."

 

"Whatever," Dean grunted over his shoulder as he stalked away. He tried not to think about the cases they'd worked where Sam had said those exact words to people who would never see their loved ones again.

 

Kicked out of the library, for the time being, Dean tried to find something useful to do. He avoided his own room and the map room like the plague, the memories and physical evidence of the terrible things that had happened still too fresh to linger in them. Sam had collected some of the toxin to archive and study, but everything it had touched was left scarred. The scenes were otherwise left as they were; devastated and bloody.

 

The mark buzzed and itched under Dean’s skin like an angry hornet, suffusing every moment he remained idle with furious impatience. To counter this he hunkered down in the kitchen to clean, grease, and load every weapon in his pack and Sam's. The routine, so ingrained by this point it had become reflexive, was usually cathartic but right now it barely scratched the surface.

 

After a while, he found himself in the garage tinkering under baby's hood but abandoned the project he’d had in mind after barely an hour of work when a misplaced finger was pinched in a place it shouldn’t have been and he nearly tore the offending piece of metal out of the engine to throw across the room. At the last minute, he’d turned away with a furious shout and kicked over the tool cart instead. The silence in the wake of the deafening crash of metal on concrete was interrupted by the hiss of a hitched breath through clenched teeth.

 

Dean stood there for a long moment, glaring at the overturned cart before swallowing thickly and kneeling to clean it up. After a few tense minutes of gathering all of the scattered materials, the hunter righted the cart. He leaned over it and braced himself on the sides in an attempt to compose himself, but his grip remained white-knuckled against the red metal. Not trusting himself to keep it together, he abandoned the garage for the gym.

 

He told himself it was for Baby’s sake.

  
.  
In the locker room, he disrobed and redressed quickly in just a pair of sweats he's snatched from the laundry room on the way, before heading out onto the mats and starting in on the heavy bag. The Mark at least seemed to be sated by the physical exertion of thoroughly pummeling the thing, the sharpness of its full fury fading into the dull ache he was used to.

 

However, without the Mark as a buffer, his mind began to wander. As he beat away at the bag, he could feel his thoughts slipping back to what had happened.

 

_Jab. Cross. Uppercut._

 

One moment his head was full of blood-red eyes that sent fear crawling up his spine and his next punch fumbling awkwardly against the bag.

 

_Hook. Elbow. Knee._

 

The next moment he was stuck in a loop of the final moments before the angel had disappeared.

 

Cruel laughter.

 

The fear and pain on Cas’s face.

 

The desperate pitch of his name in the angel’s anguished scream.

 

Dean grit his teeth against the emotion welling up in his chest, using every impact to force it back down. When his vision began to blur, he picked up the pace. Knees and elbows and feet and fists landed in rhythmic succession striking with enough force to make the chain above him whine and groan. He kept it up even when his lungs stung with every panting breath and his skin was scratched raw. Only when the muscles in his limbs began to tremble uncontrollably and the canvas bag was slick with blood did he finally stop. By then whatever tears there might have been were so mingled with the sweat dripping from his brow no one would have been able to distinguish the two.

 

With his chest still heaving, Dean suddenly broke away from the bag still swaying from the force of his assault and stormed off toward the showers. He cranked the hot water first as high as it would go before adjusting the cold and then stepped back into the locker room to pull off the sweatpants now damp with sweat and drops of blood. As he turned back he paused when he caught sight of himself in one of the steadily fogging full-length mirrors.

 

Like the scene in the garage, he simply stood and glared for a long moment, regarding himself with a critical eye. His naked skin was flushed red from the exertion. His knees and shins were splotched an angry scarlet and stung from the salt of his sweat but his knuckles had taken the brunt of the damage and dripped tiny droplets of crimson onto the white tile. When he finally raised his eyes to look at his own face, he was repulsed by his own piteous state: his hair clung to his slick forehead, his cheeks were streaked with drying lines, and he was sickly pale with dark bags dragging down glossy red-ringed eyes.

 

He looked as miserable as he felt.

 

With a frustrated scoff, Dean stalked into the showers where the air was now murky with thick hot steam. For a moment he simply stood in the middle of it, feeling the heat of the mist clinging to his skin and tried not to think of the shimmer of Cas’s grace or how similar it had felt. He wasted no time in grabbing a cloth and soap to mercilessly scrub himself down, relishing in the sting of the suds over his abused skin. He inhaled sharply through his teeth as he rinsed off the raw skin of his knuckles before finally stepping fully beneath the spray.

 

The hot water cascaded over his head in a noisy torrent that blocked out the outside world and he couldn’t stop the shuddering sigh which escaped him as suds slid over his shoulders, down the curve of his back and hips, and along his calves to swirl around his feet. He splayed his palms against the wall in front of him, closing his eyes as the tight coil of emotion in his chest finally snapped.

 

With his head bowed low, the first sob slipped passed his lips with his hands twisting to fists against the tile.

 

Later, on his way to refill his coffee cup and grab some sort of sustenance from the kitchen, Sam found his brother curled around himself on the couch of their makeshift movie room with reruns of Star Trek playing quietly in the background. He observed Dean’s bandaged knuckles, tightly crossed arms and furrowed brow from the doorway, his heart sinking.

 

At least he’s getting some rest. Sam thought bittersweetly as he stepped silently over the threshold to toss a nearby blanket over his brother.

 

In the late morning of the second day, Dean woke up with a pounding headache and a stiff neck from the angle he’d maneuvered himself into against the arm of the couch. After sitting up and eliciting a series of satisfying cracks from his back that eased the pain in his neck, he leaned over with his elbows braced on his knees and cupped his face with both hands. He rubbed at his puffy eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose and temples to ease the pressure he felt there, but it did little by means of helping.

 

As he sat in the dim light of the TV which had long since been stuck on the DVD menu screen, with his palms pressed against his eyes, he was suddenly assaulted by an overload of sensory input.

 

The dull pounding in his head erupted into white-hot splinters of glass behind his eyes. He gasped but found the air he took in felt like needlepoint barbs raking down his throat from within. His entire body convulsed before he pitched forward, an alarmed shout forced out of him as he thudded heavily onto the floor. Blind despite his eyes being open wide and unable to get a full breath, Dean thrashed around on the rug with his hands pressed against his temples in a brutal vice as though his head might split in two if he didn’t hold it together.

 

Sam was in the doorway within seconds, his gun drawn, but he holstered it the moment his eyes fell on his brother. Two long strides and he was dropping to Dean's side. By then, the older hunter had ceased all movement and curled tightly into himself as if he’d been wounded. Sam’s hands flew over him to check for damage, tugging at his arms and prying his hands away from his face.

 

“Dean!” The younger hunter called urgently, “What happened?! Dean!”

 

Then, all at once, the pain dispersed into nothing, and Dean gasped loudly, heaving the first lung full of air that didn't sear his throat along the way. Sam eased back when his brother finally unfurled himself and pushed himself up on shaky arms. Sam laid a tentative hand on his shoulder.

 

"Dean?"

 

Dean blinked rapidly as he looked around the room, feeling completely shaken and disoriented. He could finally see again but when his eyes fell on his brother his face was still a blurry smear.

 

"Sammy?"

 

Confused, Sam’s other hand came up to his brother’s free shoulder to steady him, his heart hammering with the sudden rush of adrenaline. “I’m right here man.” He reassured before he rushed to explain. “I heard you yell from the library and booked it. I thought that thing was back! What the hell happened?”

 

After taking a moment to collect himself, Dean shrugged off his brother’s hands and made to stand. Sam followed suit, ready to catch him if he became unsteady again, but Dean waved him off. He seemed to be alright physically but his stiff posture betrayed how shaken he truly was. When the older hunter didn’t reply, Sam prompted him with a firmer and far more worried tone.

 

“Dean you're scaring me, man, come on tell me what happened.”

 

Dean met his brother's eyes briefly before quickly glancing away. He thought he might have some idea what it was but...

 

The vivid image of Cas stumbling into the hallway covered in that yellow toxic sludge flashed across his mind and his hands unconsciously twisted into fists in response.

 

“Nightmare.” He replied gruffly before stooping to pick the discarded blanket up off the floor. “Must have moved around and fell off the couch.”

 

Sam was from far convinced but his brother's tone and body language had created a wall he wasn't going to get through, at least not right now. Satisfied that Dean at least seemed alright, he played along for the time being.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked in a quiet voice because that was what Dean would expect.

 

“Rather not.” Dean dodged predictably, tossing the blanket on the couch. “Find anything?”

 

The younger hunter shook his shaggy head with a sigh. “No, not yet. The library's stock of angel lore is pretty sparse. Most of it is actually notes I’ve taken myself over the years. I’ve been making my way through the books that I did find though, and there’s a few capsuled scrolls written in what I’m pretty sure is ancient Canaanite that might be promising but translating a dead language is slow going.”

 

“Then I’ll come help. I’ll read the books, you translate.” Dean stated as he stepped passed the taller hunter. “But first; coffee.”

 

Before Sam could get another word in, Dean was already heading for the kitchen.

 

The rest of the day was spent in the library save for the occasional break for food or the toilet. Sometime around 9 PM Sam was muttering to himself across the table nearly buried in a pile of red ink etched paper and about a dozen different scrolls all in varying degrees of disrepair when Dean’s phone suddenly began to ring.

 

Both brothers startled at the sudden interruption, but Dean recovered quicker. He hopped up to get to the phone in his pocket, banging his injured knuckles against the underside of the table in his haste to dig it out. Pain splintered clear up to his elbow as he fumbled clumsily with the other hand, reaching awkwardly across himself to retrieve the phone with a hissed explicative. His blood hammered wildly in his ears.

 

_Please be Cas._

 

When he was finally able to see the name, his heart sank; it was Jody. He tried not to let the disappointment seep into his voice when he answered.

 

“Hey, Jody, what’s up?”

 

Sam looked up from his writing to give his brother an expectant look, but Dean just waved him off, shaking his throbbing hand out in the air in front of him.

 

**< <Hey Dean, you alright? You sound tired.>>  
**

 

He couldn’t help the sad little twist at the corner of his mouth. Jody never failed to see straight through his bullshit. Everyone seemed to be doing that lately; he was losing his touch.

 

“I’m always tired,” Dean replied warmly. “It comes with the job. What about you? Everything okay?”

 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and he can just imagine her piercing eyes narrowing and lips pursing like she wants to pry deeper, but to his surprise, she jumps right in.

 

**< <Just human trouble in town, but I took a road trip after Claire. Something weird is going that I wanted to run by you boys.>>**

 

“Yeah okay. Hold on, let me put you on speaker.”

 

Dean then laid his phone on the table between him and Sam as he sat back down and tapped the screen.

 

“Hey, Jody.” Sam greeted, his voice a bit gritty from lack of use during the day.

 

**< <Jesus Sam, you don’t sound much better than your brother. What in the world have you guys been doing?>>**

 

Dean jutted his fingers back and forth under his chin in the universal ‘don’t tell her’ sign.

 

“Just some late-night research,” Sam replied evenly.

 

There was another pause on the other end like she was deciding whether or not to believe him before Jody spoke again. **< <I swear you boys work too much. Don’t forget to take a break every now and then okay?> _>_**

 

“Sure thing Jody.” Dean agreed, “Now you were saying you wanted to run something by us? You got a case?”

 

**< <Yeah. You ever hear of a little town called Faith?>>**

 

“Doesn’t ring any bells” Dean replied.

 

**< <Yeah, me either. Until about a week ago. Apparently, it’s a town carved out of the prairie about two hours Northwest of Pierre. Its a big time sheep and cattle ranch area.>> **

 

“Cattle mutilations then?” Sam asked.

 

**< <You’d think it’d be prime real estate for that right, but no. Claire came out here first to check out a few missing person reports that had all cropped up just a few days apart but when she got there she found out it was more than just a few.>>**

 

A red flag went up in Dean’s head and he met Sam’s eyes over the phone as he asked, “How many we talkin’ here Jody?”

 

**< <A dozen. All within the last week.>>**

 

It was Hannah’s office all over again 

 

“Do you have anything else?” Sam asked earnestly, and Dean could tell he was trying to keep his voice even so as not to alarm her. 

 

** <<Yeah, that’s why I wanted your input. When Claire checked in and told me what was going on, I headed up there that night. With that many missing people, my first thought was vamp nest and I wasn’t about to let her go up against that on her own. Then I got here and started asking around and now I don’t know what to think. Vamps out here usually take victims that won't get them noticed. Loners, drifters, tourists; people that won’t be missed in town, but no matter who I talked to, every single person knew most if not all of the people who disappeared.>> **

 

“You said it’s a small town,” Sam stated, “People tend to know people in small towns.” 

 

** <<Yeah, but not like this. Trust me.>>**

 

“Okay, so what made them small-town celebrities then?” Dean asked. 

 

** << Well, the most obvious ones were doctors, two of them: Dr. John S. White and Dr. Mary Weathers. Another two were nurses that worked with them at the local urgent care. Witnesses described them as ‘miracle workers’. Apparently, they had a perfect track record for healing and curing their patients. I’m not just talking about the flu and sprained ankles here either. A few months back there was a pretty bad car accident in town where three teenagers suffered critical injuries, but instead of rushing them to Rapid City, they were taken to Dr. White. Two days later, all three kids were wheeled out in bandages and casts. None of them needed physical therapy. All of them were back to normal within a couple of weeks.>> **

 

“Okay, that’s kinda freaky.” 

 

“What about the others?” Sam probed further. 

 

** <<Right. Three more ran a local community nonprofit, one was a preschool teacher, and one was a priest. And everyone I questioned said the same thing about them as they had about the others. They called them ‘blessings’, said that ‘they had been sent by heaven’, or that they were ‘doing god’s work’. Get this though, that isn’t even the weirdest part of all this.>> **

 

“We’re listening,” Sam remarked. 

 

** <<I did some more digging because twelve perfect saints in a town of less than 500 seemed a bit fishy. The first red flag was finding out none of them had any records going back more than two years. After that, I called in some favors and ran their faces through the law enforcement databases. Red flag number two: every single one pinged missing person's reports from all over the country. The identities they were using were completely fake. Here’s the kicker: statements from their former family and friends indicated that they all went through a ‘sudden and intense change of character’ before they disappeared. Stop me if this sounds familiar.>> **

 

“Angels,” Sam stated with no small amount of disbelief. 

 

Dean was stunned into silence. 

 

** <<Bingo. I thought since you guys know an angel that he might want to look into-->> <**

 

“Hold up." Dean interrupted, addressing Sam when he finally found his voice. He stood up from his chair, pressing his knuckles into the table as he leaned over the phone with intent. “Didn’t Hannah say all her angels were accounted for in Heaven?” 

 

“All the angels that were loyal to her were accounted for but thousands were cast out during the Fall. There must have been a few pockets that hid well enough to avoid her witch hunt.” Sam replied thoughtfully, before he suddenly jumped to his feet, his eyes wide as he looked at his brother. “Dean, she said they all went missing within the last week, that fits Hannah’s timeline.” 

 

Dean’s chest was tight with anticipation but he felt light-headed, almost giddy. Had they really just stumbled into a break? 

 

** <<Um, guys? Still here and not following.>> **

 

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, Jody.” Sam replied haltingly. “This is going to sound nuts, but I think what we were working on might be linked.” 

 

** <<What?! How?!>>**

 

“Not sure yet,” Dean answered. “But we’re going to come to you. You said you’re still in town right?” 

 

** <<You shouldn't start driving up here now, it’s the middle of the night!>> **

 

“We’re going,” Dean repeated firmer than he intended. “Where are you staying?” 

 

Sam threw him a dirty look for his tone but he ignored it. If this really was a break, if something in that town could lead them to Cas, Dean didn’t care how tired he was or how long the drive would take, he was going to get there and figure this shit out. 

 

**< <It’s a motel on the west side of the city called the Branding Iron.>>** She paused for a moment before finally breaking and asking what she’d wanted to ask earlier. **< <Something happened didn’t it? I can hear it in your voice. Are you sure you’re going to be alright?>> **

 

“I’ll be better when I get there.” He retorted curtly before nodding to Sam. “I’m going to go pack. Meet me upstairs in twenty.” 

 

“Dean wait--!” Sam started, but his brother was already gone. The younger hunter sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache he could feel creeping up behind his eyes. 

 

** <<Sam are you still there?>> **

 

He picked up the phone and tapped it off speaker before replying. 

 

“Yeah, I’m still here.” He answered with a sigh. “I’m sorry about that Jody, he’s not in a good space right now.” 

 

** <<Gee, ya think? Be straight with me Sam. What the hell is going on?>> **

 

“It’s a lot to explain but the short version is; Me, Dean and Cas were already consulting on a missing angel case but...but it turned belly up and Cas--” He paused to swallow back the lump of emotion climbing up his throat. “Cas is missing now too, and we were pulling our hair out trying to dig up some leads until you called.” 

 

** <<Shit.>>** Jody cursed, her voice tight and worried. **< <No wonder Dean sounds like he’s about to snap.>>** A pause and then, **< <What should I tell Claire? She’s the one who made the angel connection and she’ll definitely notice Cas isn’t with you on an angel related case.>> **

 

Sam grimaced; he hadn’t thought of that. “Don’t tell her anything yet. We’ll catch you both up to speed when we get there. For now, just...just tell her we’re coming to help with the case.” 

 

** <<Yeah sure.>>** Another pause. **< <Man I almost feel bad for whoever thought it was a good idea to kidnap Dean Winchester’s angel.>> **

 

Sam couldn’t help but smile at her statement."Yeah, he's definitely on the warpath." 

** <<Alright, well, I can’t stop you boys from coming, but I did look up directions. It’ll be just over eight hours of driving so don’t you dare let him stay behind the wheel the whole way.>> **

“I’ll do my best but you know how stubborn he can be.” 

 

**< <Colossally.>>** She sighed longsufferingly before continuing. **< <First the Mark and now this; keep an eye on him Sam, he’s lible to do something stupid when he’s like this. I’ll see you in the morning.>>**

 

A dry laugh escaped him in a huff of air, “Don’t I know it. See you, Jody." 

 

After hanging up, Sam glanced around their work station, eyeing the scrolls he was only about a third of the way through translating. After a quick glance at the door, he fished his own phone from his laptop bag and began to carefully snap pictures of the remaining scrolls one section at a time. If they were going to be on the road, he didn’t want to risk damaging them, but he also didn’t want to leave behind any potentially useful information. After uploading the pictures to his drive to access later, he packed up a few of the lore books they hadn’t gotten to yet, and his laptop before carefully rerolling the scrolls into their respective capsules and shelving them. 

 

Just over twenty minutes later, Sam strode into the garage with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and his laptop case in hand. Dean was rechecking weapons and ammo in the trunk as he approached. 

 

“Took you long enough.” The older hunter growled. 

 

“Sorry I’ve only been hunched over ancient Canaanite all day.” Sam retorted testily, lugging the duffle into the back seat next to the cooler and bag Dean had already arranged back there. “I also took some pictures of the scrolls and packed up the lore books just in case.” 

 

“You think we’ll still need them?” Dean asked skeptically. 

 

“I’d rather bring them and not need them than need them and not have them.” 

 

“Whatever.” 

 

Sam leaned on his hands against the car, “Jody was right you know. It's pretty late to start on a long haul like this. Are you sure you don’t wanna catch a few hours and start fresh in the morning?” 

 

“You can sleep in the car Samantha,” Dean replied impatiently. 

 

“That’s not what I--” 

 

“Look, I get that you're trying to make sure I’m okay.” Dean barked, cutting him off as he slammed the trunk down before meeting his brother’s eyes with a hard glare. “But I’m not okay, and I’m not gonna be okay until we find Cas and gank the son of a bitch that took him. News flash Sam: every second we waste could be one less second Cas has breathing so forgive me if I don’t want to wait around here ‘til morning with my thumb of my ass when we finally have a lead that’s only two god damned states away. Now stop trying to mother me and get in the fucking car!” 

 

The silence after the final outburst was heavy while Sam stared at his brother, completely taken aback, but before he had a chance to say anything, Dean was already stalking around the driver's side. He wrenched the door open without another word and practically threw himself inside. Sam stood stupified for another moment before climbing in shotgun. He set his case gingerly down by his feet for easy access, carefully quiet while the impala rumbled to life and Dean was made a three-point turn before driving out onto the gravel road. The silence between them was uncomfortably tense. Dean’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly it must have hurt his knuckles, but Sam decided that mentioning this was probably not the wisest. Instead, he just leaned back in his seat and stared out the window. 

 

By the time they hit the highway, Sam had nodded off against the window and Dean was pushing Baby up over ninety. Though he was tired, his attention never wavered from the path his headlights illuminated on the darkened blacktop. It would be just eight measly hours before they arrived and finally got some answers as to what the hell was going on. 

 

Some answers as to what had happened to Cas. 

 

Despite the small victory, Dean couldn’t quash the dread that was needling between his ribs. He had been a hunter his whole damn life. He’d been to hell and back. He’d been shot, stabbed, shredded and tortured by creatures centuries, hell millennia, old. But this thing…this thing was bigger and badder and older than any demon or monster they had faced before. He wasn’t sure exactly how he knew this but every alarm bell in his head was going off and the closer they got to Faith, the more his stomach twisted into knots and his instincts screamed at him in warning. His dad would have called it hunter’s intuition. 

 

Whatever. 

 

It didn’t matter what it was 

 

He just needed to kill it. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys its getting so close to the mid narrative climax! For everyone that is still reading, you are in for some twisty turns! Forewarning, this chapter, and the next few chapters will contain some Castiel whump so view appropriately. Also, I'm going to be taking some big liberties with the history surrounding Carthage/ The Punic Wars and all of the people involved with them so...prepare yourselves for that.

When Castiel woke it was with the sudden painful gasp of a drowning man accompanied by a full-body spasm which sent electric sparks of thorny pain shooting up through his shoulders and into his forearms. The next sensation to slither through his nervous system was the dull throbbing numbness in his hands which were wrenched up and bound tightly above his head.

When he tried to take another steadying breath the air stuttered and caught in his throat. His lungs burned causing him to cough wetly around the sensation in an attempt to catch his breath again but the air around him was so thick with the mingling scents of sticky copper and charred ozone that his stomach convulsed, forcing him to gag. The involuntary reflex spurred more coughing, further straining the tendons in his shoulders. He groaned low and rough in frustrated agony while the toes of his dockers scraped for footing fruitlessly against the ground.

Blessedly, the burn in his throat and chest faded into a dull ache not too long after. The pain and adrenaline had worked to clear some of the hazy film which had blanketed his mind enough to realize that despite his eyes being open he could not see. Cas blinked rapidly against the dimly lit blur of the world around him but the action only proved to produce a stinging burn reminiscent of the feeling in his throat. His eyes watered excessively as a result further obscuring his vision.

Desperate for answers, Cas tilted his head up to examine his binding but his prone position coupled with his impaired vision made identifying the material impossible. Instead, he concentrated on the tight solid coil to determine with feeling alone that it was some kind of chain. It took a few moments of dazed confusion before the implications finally dawned on him.

_ He'd been abducted by the creature. _

The terrible acid burn he was experiencing was the toxin and the smell…

Panic flared low and heavy in his stomach, the earlier nausea returning with a vengeance as bile rose in his throat. 

_ The smell was blood and grace.  _

Then everything came flooding back in choppy vivid imagery.

Being sucked into Dean's dreamscape.

The heated words and violence.

The encroaching shadows.

The confession...

The kiss…!

Then the creature's terrible features as they broke apart, shattering the intimacy of the moment and then again when he was hurled back into the waking world where it attacked him with all the efficiency of a seasoned predator.

The acidic splatter of the toxin blinding him when he attempted to flush the room with grace before turning to flee in a desperate attempt to keep the monster away from Dean.

_ Dean. _

Shame seeped into Cas’s veins like ice water. He'd  _ promised _ not to do anything on his own but there had been no other choice. The moment he’d laid eyes on the creature he  _ knew  _ it was there for  _ him _ , that it would follow him if he ran and he couldn’t risk Dean...

Witnessing the fury on the hunter's face when he appeared in the map room and realized what Cas had done had hurt but it was worth it to know he would survive. Yet, when the paralysis had begun to set in and the reality of what was happening sank in, the fear had finally overwhelmed him and he'd cried out for Dean right before everything went black

In a sudden frenzy, Cas flexed the aching muscles in his arms in a frantic attempt to free himself but...the chain wouldn’t break. It didn’t even budge. He tried again, biting back the agonized sounds that threatened to crawl out of his throat as his aching shoulders strained, this time struggling mightily enough that the links above him rattled and groaned but despite his enhanced strength they continued to hold strong.

Now on the edge of hysterics, the brilliant white-blue light of his grace began to emanate from Cas’s blind eyes. He stilled his body and willed his grace to simply vaporize the chain entirely. It backfired instantly and a new, far more insidious sort of agony spidered down through the extended arm of ethereal energy, threading through his grace with all the searing intensity of holy fire. A harrowing shout was torn out of him as his entire body arched against the scalding intrusion as though he’d been electrified before falling limp once again.

With his head spinning, Cas’s eyes rolled around behind fluttering lids but he clung desperately to consciousness despite the icy claws of the void threatening to pull him back under. His chest heaved, his breathing coming in shallow panting breaths. Sweat beaded against his skin dampening his hair and clothes until they clung to him, sticky and uncomfortable.

Precious minutes ticked by as he hung there recovering from the shock.

When finally the heartbeat thundering in his ears slowed to a dull roar, he blinked his eyes open once again, wincing at the sting that hadn’t lost any of its intensity. His vision remained infuriatingly indistinct. Tremors quaked through his limbs while his wounded grace sunk into his core and coiled tightly around itself in defense.

He focused on his breathing, forcing it to slow though it was still shaky with each inhalation. Once he had evened it out and calmed himself enough to think clearly, he attempted to utilize his other undamaged senses to decipher his immediate vicinity.

The stagnant air that crowded into his nose was thick and humid, it’s foul odor sticking to the back of his throat with every breath. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to notice he was absent of his trench coat and suit coat, left in only his white button-down which had long since soaked through with sweat during his initial struggle, but now fully alert and still in the stuffy space, he could feel a fresh sheen of moisture along his forehead and temples, dripping down his brow and nose to mingle with the tears his wounded eyes were overproducing.

Due to the restraints and blindness, he couldn't see anything beyond vague shapes and shadows against a small dingy light source somewhere in front of him. Despite not being able to see, he could sense there was a vast open space around him and a chill passed over him. If it weren’t for the sweltering heat pressing in on him, he’d have thought, with a dawning sense of horror, that he’d been left hanging in a meat locker like a butchered carcass.

Just as the terrible vision of angel’s being processed for slaughter entered his mind, his sensitive ears picked up a faint whimper from somewhere behind him. His grace, locked securely deep inside his vessel, shuddered in longing to reach out as it recognized the faint radiation of a kindred energy; another angel.

“Who's there?!” Cas called out urgently, his voice hitching and catching like tires on dry gravel.

“Be silent!” replied a whispered hiss in the voice of a young girl.

“Muriel?” He all but cried out. Relief flooded through him, but dread still sat like a heavy stone in his gut. “It’s Castiel sister, I’m here, I came to find you!”

A strangled sob erupted unexpectedly from the same source but pain seared through his shoulders when he attempted to turn himself to identify it.

“Oh father in Heaven!” Muriel wailed brokenly, the high pitch of her girlish voice even more displaced and disturbing in the silence. “If it has gotten to you, what hope do the rest of us have?!”

“The rest of you?” Cas parroted, struck dumb before remembering himself and demanding in a firmer tone, “How many of you are still here?!”

“Dozens.” Another voice, this one male but only slightly older, uttered meekly from his immediate left. 

Cas recognized his voice instantly. “Micah?!”

His feet scrambled for purchase against the floor for a moment before his shoe managed to catch on something granting him the momentary leverage to turn just enough to peer around his arm to catch sight of the lanky blur that was Micah’s young vessel before his foot slipped and whipped him back around to the front with a painful rattle of the chain. Cas gave a frustrated growl and flexed futaly once again against the chain.

“It’s useless to struggle,” Micah muttered flatly. “The chains are warded with a spell in a language I’ve never seen. They neutralize our strength and the magic within them burns our grace if we try to use it. I struggled against them for days, but nothing works. We are trapped Castiel, until it takes us.”

“Takes us where?” Cas demanded

“Through there,” Micah replied his voice dull and resigned like he’d already given up.

“Through where?”

“There is a door about eight meters in front of you. It takes them through and...the screams--"

Just then, Micah went silent as the door he was speaking about suddenly squealed open. Castiel snapped his head to the front, his vision having improved just enough to make out a familiar dark silhouette against flickering firefight from beyond the door frame. Eight unblinking red eyes were pinned on him, igniting something fearful and primal within him.

Cas’s breath caught in his throat as the creature stepped forward and seemed to unfurl itself to its full height as if it had been bent unnaturally in the smaller space of the room beyond. It towered above them, it’s shoulders and head lost in the darkness above that the light could not penetrate while its eyes remained illuminated. 

A blissfully cool draft of air swept through the room from the doorway, carrying with it the grainy scent of sandstone and desert air, as well as the acrid stench of the toxin which burned his nose as he inhaled. Behind him, Muriel let out a terrified cry, sobbing prayers of mercy in Enochian loud enough that she drew the creature’s attention away from Castiel. For a moment it simply peered at her before slowly leaning forward to plant its hands on the floor. It’s movements after that were smooth and quick, it’s long skeletal limbs reminding him of a spider.

Cas shuddered as it neared, more than unsettled by its alien nature, but he couldn’t allow it to get to Muriel if he could stop it.

"Leave her!" Castiel shouted. He had no way of knowing if it was sentient and could even understand him but it paused nevertheless, at the very least distracted by his voice. He could feel the fluctuation of energy in the air as the thing studied him.

Then it moved without warning, striking out it’s hand like lightning to catch the angel’s jaw, it’s large sickly cold palm pressed against his mouth with a bruising force and drew him nearer. Cas's neck and arms screamed in painful protest, his shoulders pulled to their absolute limit while it held him aloft by the head.

It brought it’s face within inches of Cas’s own, and this close he could clearly see the pinpricks of black in the midst of the blood-red glow of all eight eyes, all of them focused on the angel with an intensity that stole his breath.  Cas was powerless to do anything but stare back with wide horrified eyes as the creature’s mouth parted along a vertical seam that ran the length of its face, just as it had in Dean’s bedroom, revealing row after row of razor-sharp teeth dripping with saliva and the putrid yellow toxin.

Its hand then shifted lower, pinching Cas’s face between it’s clawed fingers to force his mouth open before it leaned closer. It’s long pink tongue, which had been hanging limp between the sections of its lower jaw, suddenly squirmed to life and before Cas could blink, it was forcing its way into his mouth. Cas couldn’t help the choked shout that escaped him, but it only proved to grant the thing more access, and he gagged around the wriggling appendage.

Then, from the tip of its tongue, it spewed it’s toxin directly down his throat. He could feel the acid burn of it sliding down, felt it pool in his stomach as he choked and sputtered around it. Adrenaline coursed through him lending him enough strength to struggle mightily against the creature’s hold, but it remained unphased.

When the creature finally withdrew, it released Cas to swing back to the position he’d begun in, hanging limp and barely touching the floor. Like in the bunker, the paralysis began to set in along with the panic. It began in his legs and crawled upwards, but the prickling numbness moved faster with the direct administration and in no time at all his vessel was rendered completely incapable of movement. 

An internal shudder passed through him as his head lulled forward no longer able to support itself. A mingling of the creature’s saliva and his own oozed over his lips to dribble down his chin and drip sticky strands of slime onto the floor. His vision began to blacken around the edges, but in his periphery, he could see the thing moving away from him. 

Behind him, he could hear Muriel's muffled shriek and fruitless struggle but just as it had with him, he could hear the creature manhandle her, could hear the obscene squelching of its tongue in her mouth and her wetly choking and gagging around its intrusion. 

Before long, all was quiet again.  

Then the faint metallic jingle of loosened chain drifted over to Cas, followed by the thump of a body hitting the floor, and the steady  _ step drag step drag _ as the creature hauled it’s prey along the floor behind it but it was all dulled and distant as though he were deep under water. It passed close enough to Castiel that he could see Muriel plain as day as it dragged her behind. Her body was entirely limp, her mouth hanging open and glistening but her eyes were wide with absolute terror.

Cas tried to move, tried to scream, tried to do something  _ anything-- _ but he was completely powerless. 

The last thing he could see was the creature lifting Muriel’s small body up through the doorway, its fingers twisted tightly in her hair before the spidery black tendrils framing his perception finally blotted out his vision completely and he succumbed to the toxin, falling unconscious once more.

***

Dean’s body gave a violent lurch as he was hurled back into consciousness, banging his knee against the impala’s glove box hard enough to tear a loud curse from his lips. He was rubbing the tender spot, and coughing around a terrible acid burn in his throat when the driver’s side door suddenly popped open far enough for Sam to lean in and shove a plastic bag full of gas station supplies across the bench seat. He glanced up when he noticed that his brother was awake but paused mid motion and pinned the older hunter with a concerned look.

"Hey," Sam said carefully like he might further spook his brother who looked about ready to jump out of his own skin, "You okay?"

For a moment Dean seemed as completely disoriented as he had been the previous morning, before his unseeing eyes shifted away from Sam to peer out the front window. The fluorescent lights of the gas station canopy were harsh against his tired eyes. Outside the ring of light, the sky above the dark road was still pitch black. 

Road. Right, they were on the road toward Faith.

After a moment, Dean sniffed and pushed himself up straighter in the seat to stretch out his sore neck and shoulders which seemed to be aching way more than catnapping sitting up should warrant.

"M'fine," Dean grumbled, running a hand over his face to force the grisly nightmare out of his mind. "How long have I been out?"

"I pulled off a few miles outside Pierre to hit the head, so just over two hours?" Sam replied, before jerking his thumb at the gas pump behind him, “I was about to fill up and get back on the road.”

“Alright,” Dean replied, his voice still sleep rough as he pulled on the passenger side handle to get out. He yawned and stretched his arms over his head to get the blood moving again before stepping around the trunk to flip the license plate up and get at the gas cap. “I’ve got it from here. Hand ‘em over.”

Sam’s brows knit together as he followed his brother’s lead and leaned out of the front seat, peering after him as he lifted the nozzle off the lever.

“Dude, it’s only another two hours to Faith, you should go back to sleep.”

“I’ll make it in one and a quarter.” Dean shot back with a good humored smirk that didn’t touch his eyes. When Sam didn’t move to comply, he laid his arm over the top of the trunk and made a grabby hand at him. “Keys.”

Sam stared warily at his open palm, “Dean--”

“I’m not asking here Sam.” Dean cut him off sharply.

For a moment, Sam just stood there with his hands clenching and unclenching lamely at his sides. His lips were pressed into a thin line like he was trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to have the 'two hours isn't enough sleep' argument.

“Fine.” He retorted eventually in a tone that indicated it was clearly not fine before shoving a hand into his pocket and lobbing the keys at his brother’s face.

Dean caught them as Sam rounded the nose of the car and climbed in shotgun. By the time the lever on the pump flipped to signal the end of the prepay limit, he decided to follow his brother’s lead and find the bathroom while he had the chance. He knocked on Sam's window to let him know with a jerk of his thumb toward the station.

Upon entry, Dean was immediately assaulted by the strong scent of industrial bleach that didn’t quite mask the underlying musty odor of mildew and piss. The first cursory glance around was enough to put a disgusted scowl on his face. 

The floor tile looked like it might have been white once but had since been worn to a greyish yellow in the footpath from the door to the single stall toilet and back to the sink. The ceiling and walls were stained nicotine yellow and the paint peeling near the bottom left eggshell flecks stuck in the blackened grout lines that were tacky enough to be audible under his boots. The single fluorescent light hanging crookedly from the ceiling above him hummed loudly when its ancient sensor finally registered his movement before sputtering on.

With a huffed sigh, Dean reluctantly pushed open the stall door, wincing as its tarnished hinges squealed loudly in protest. His scowl deepened at the piss stained toilet bowl. After relieving himself and fighting with the loose flusher for a few seconds, he made his way over to the sink which was angled a bit too low as though it had seen it's fair share of inappropriate usage involving parties either too heavy or too rough--probably both.

The cold water sprayed out like a god damned fire hose while the hot water barely dribbled out at all. After washing his hands, Dean leaned against the porcelain and glared hard at his reflection.  A crack running from the upper right corner of the glass down to the center split out in three different directions, chopping up his image, but he could see himself well enough to tell that he still looked like death warmed over.

Just under five hours into the drive Dean had pulled off the highway to hit the drive-thru of a 24hr McDonalds in a little town about a half hour south of Nebraska's state line. The greasy lopsided big mac he'd downed in just a few huge mouthfuls had been mostly stale bread and it had settled in his empty stomach like a stone. He had waved Sam off twice when he got prodded for nodding off behind the wheel, but after he hit the shoulder’s rumble strip a third time and got an earful from the younger hunter, he'd begrudgingly handed over the keys.

He might as well have stayed awake for all the good two hours got him but there was nothing to be done about it now. While his sleep had always been restless with nightmares, since Cas had been taken, it had been more tumultuous than usual. It had hit a new peek the previous morning in the bunker with the strange sensory dream that hit him while he'd only been half awake but he’d been stubborn and written it off then as nerves and sleep deprivation despite his instincts insistence to the contrary. 

In the back of his mind he suspected it had something to do with the new enhanced connection he and Cas had developed when all of this shit started. He still had enough hang-ups about what that meant that fessing up to his brother made the palms of his hands clammy with sweat but the nightmare in the car had been just this side of fucked up enough that he was maybe kinda sorta considering it.

When he’d come to with his heart in his throat and blood rushing in his ears it was because the nightmare had been so vivid and realistic it was as though he’d been there in person witnessing the terrible things that had occurred. His skin crawled as he recalled the sequence of events that had woken him, disgusted with his own imagination for having conjured such a grotesque potential for Cas and the other angels. At least he  _ wanted _ to believe it was his own imagination. With a tired sigh, Dean squeezed his eyes closed and leaned heavily on his hands. 

Through his eyelids he could see that light above him flicker once again. With an irritated huff he blinked them open only to freeze on the spot when his vision zeroed in on a familiar shadow towering behind him, taking up the entire space around him in the mirror’s reflection. 

Unblinking crimson eyes stared directly at his face with it’s head cocked just so to the side; it’s gaze intensely intrusive and searching. The biting scent of bleach was completely subverted by a malodorous surge of blood and ozone so overwhelming Dean could practically taste it. 

Then just as suddenly as it had appeared, the light flickered once again and it was gone.

The second he could move, Dean whipped around with his gun drawn, his breath heaving and his blood thundering in his ears but there was nothing but the ugly yellowed peeling wall and empty air behind him. He aimed the muzzle around in every direction, his movements jerky as he searched the tiny space for any sign of the creature, but it was as if it had never been. When he finally lowered his weapon and dared to glance at the mirror, he was once again alone in the reflection. 

Holstering the gun with trembling hands, Dean stared once again at his reflection, forcing himself to calm down, playing off the jolt of terror as paranoia. He’d been on the brink of exhaustion for four days now; he was starting to hallucinate that’s all.

Right.

To punctuate the thought, Dean cranked the water once again and splashed his face a few times to clear his head before using the hem of his shirt to dry off. Then, after taking a shaky breath, he shook his hands out as best he could, wiped them on his jeans and promptly vacated the claustrophobic little room. 

After a second of deliberation he rounded the corner and popped into the station proper to grab a coffee. It was bitter and tar thick, and the first sip burned the tip of his tongue but the smell was grounding and the caffeine would help alleviate some of the pressure that was building behind his eyes. He trudged back to the car with his shoulders scrunched up against the chill in the early morning air, training his face into something he hoped wouldn't give away his freaky bathroom experience. When he finally slid into the driver’s seat, Sam had his nose buried in his phone and his translation journal was splayed across his lap.

“Took you long enough,” He grunted impatiently, before taking one look at his brother and pausing his scribbling to eye him with the look of concern that seemed to have become more or less permanent over the last few days. “Everything okay?”

The truth was on the tip of Dean’s tongue but he chickened out at the last moment. “Road food.” Dean lied as he turned the keys in the ignition.

“Ew,” Sam muttered with a scrunched face before turning back to the journal. “Well, while you were purging, I translated something useful.”

“Useful how?” Dean asked as he pulled out onto the road. 

“Remember when Hannah said that angels disappearing had happened before? Well, I think I figured out when and why.”

“It was sitting under our noses the whole damn time?!” Dean asked incredulously

“Well technically it was sitting in storage” Sam responded thoughtfully before his brother’s pointed glare prompted him to get on with it. “Turns out, one of the scrolls I snapped pictures of was actually some sort of log dictated by a Roman General called Scipio Aemilianus Africanus . It details some freaky stuff happening in an ancient port city on the Mediterranean called Carthage.”

Dean’s brows knit together, “Okay? Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Ever hear the phrase ‘sowing salt into the earth’?” Sam asked.

Dean looked sideways at him, “Not really, but it sounds like our kinda thing.”

“Kinda. It’s the ritual of spreading salt on conquered cities. Supposedly it was meant to purify a destroyed city and curse anyone who tried to rebuild it. Carthage was one of the first and most famous instances of it happening.”

“Yeesh,” Dean hissed. 

“I always thought it was a myth; a little embellishment on the conquering side’s narrative, but according to this log, it apparently was not. This Scipio guy gave the order to his troops to sow salt into the ruins of Carthage after he burned it to the ground.” He paused for effect, “--approximately two thousand years ago.”

Dean’s eyes widened, “Shit that’s when the angels got the no go order. What else does it say?”

“Exactly!” Sam replied eagerly. “Get this; Scipio went head to head with another General called Hannibal Barca in three different wars. He lost twice but it says here that after receiving a vision of truth from an  _ archangel _ , Scipio was finally able to outmaneuver Hannibal and take Carthage. He then ‘burned the city to the ground and salted the earth over it to ensure no others would ever make the mistakes of their forebears’."

Dean perked up a bit, "Archangel? You think it could have been Michael?"

“It doesn’t give a name, but Michael was the head honcho after God went MIA, and given his order forbidding angels to interact with humans came right after, I’d say there’s a pretty good chance."

"Okay but all I'm hearing is how Michael helped the Roman empire conquer a city...cool history lesson but what does it have to do with the thing that took Cas?"

"I don't have the whole thing translated yet, but listen to this entry:

**“--a darkness has shrouded Carthage for decades, one which feeds on its growing thirst for blood. Hannibal Barca, like his father before him, is a cunning and formidable opponent. Despite his youth, he is victorious in every skirmish but I never dared believe the rumors concerning his success until I bore witness to the truth with my own eyes. In that city, where the sacrifice of innocents has become commonplace, a savage ritual is practiced wherein those beings who bare within them the sacred light of the divine are offered as a tribute at the altar of a false idol in exchange for power and wealth. The Carthaginians worship it and praised its name as Elo’Araphel as though such an abomination could be considered a God--"**

Sam trailed off after the last line. The silence afterward was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“‘Beings who bare the sacred light of the divine...’” Dean quoted the line back to Sam, his scabbed up knuckles turning white on the steering wheel as the image of the shadowy entity from the bathroom mirror's reflection flashed across his mind. “Is it just me or does that sound a hell of a lot like he’s talking about angel grace.”

“Yeah it does,” Sam agreed casting a cautious look at his brother. "If I'm translating correctly, it sounds like Carthage...sacrificed angels to some kind of entity in exchange for power and affluence."

"Fucking hell." Was all Dean could muster.

Silence stretched on for the next several miles as both brothers tried to come to terms with this new information. The first absurd thought that popped uninhibited into Dean's mind was how much he regretted not kissing Cas in the chapel when he had the chance. It was immediately quashed by an angry and slightly abashed voice that insisted it would be the first thing he did when they found the angel and brought him home.

"So," Dean began after nearly half an hour, "Last time I checked the Mediterranean was on the other side of the world. Thoughts on why this Araphel creep decided to trek all the way across the pond and pop up in the center of the US?"

Sam thought about the question for a long moment before replying, "If the sacrifices were made in exchange for power...there's never a shortage of lunatics who aren't above using supernatural means to get a leg up. Someone could have summoned it here."

“Fan-freaking-tastic. We’re back at square one.” Dean growled angrily.

“I’ll work on translating the rest when we land,” Sam replied, still sounding a bit shell shocked, “And we still have Faith to investigate. We’ll figure this out.”

Mile marker after mile marker whipped by in streaks of green as steely silence wedged itself back between them. Sam had since closed his journal and now sat idle but tense with his hands fisted against his knees, pointedly staring out the passenger window. Despite the lack of sound, Dean could practically hear the gears in this brother’s head turning and knew it was only a matter of time before all of his stewing boiled over.

For his part, Dean bided his time by forcing everything not immediately necessary out of his mind. He was sore, he was tired and now with recent revelations, he was beyond worried about Cas. So he shut it all down until he felt numb and blank. Sam must have noticed at some point because he began to fidget in the tell tale way he did when there was something between them yet to be addressed. It came to a head when they passed a sign which marked Faith about forty miles away.

“Okay I can’t take it anymore.” Sam suddenly blurted out, shattering the tense silence. "What the hell is going on with you?"

"Uh, you mean besides the ancient deity kidnapping angels to sacrifice?" Dean hissed back dismissively.

"Yeah, Dean." Sam snapped back just as harshly. "You've been acting weird since we got back to the bunker. You’ve been all over the place man: you couldn’t sit still for two straight days but now you’re completely shut down. You’ve barely spoken to me since we left. And don't think I haven't noticed that you're avoiding sleep. I've been trying to let you sort it out without butting in--"

"Yet here we freaking are." Dean groused, his mood sinking lower with every word out of his brother's mouth.

"--but yesterday,” Sam went on as though his brother hadn’t interrupted, “in the bunker, you woke up so scared it was like you couldn't even see me and it was the same earlier at the gas station. If it was as simple as you being worried about Cas or stressing the case, I'd leave it alone, but ever since we went to Heaven there has been something going on with you that you aren't telling me."

The Mark immediately flared to life but Dean bit back the scathing retort that clawed up his throat. Instead, his nostrils flared as he exhaled a long even breath to quell the sudden anger. Despite being an insufferable nag, Sam's heart was in the right place.

If Dean was being completely honest with himself, it was his own cowardice that had gotten him to his point anyway, which made him that much more upset. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sam with the truth, he just didn’t want to see the sympathy on his face or worse,  _ the knowing _ in his eyes that had caught him off guard in the garage. Not to mention telling Sam meant acknowledging it;  _ really  _ acknowledging  _ it  _ and not just playing at the edges of  _ it  _ where he could pull back at the last second before  _ it  _ became too real _. _

**_...but what was it…?_ **

He’d loosely defined his feelings to himself before Cas had been taken, but the underlying current of emotions were far more complicated.  _ It  _ was this shift between him and Cas; what it meant and what would change between them as a consequence.  _ It  _ was his deepest and most sincere hopes and desires but also his most personal and private fears.  _ It  _ was his father’s orders ingrained in him since he was four to look after Sammy, that nothing or no one was more important than Sammy, but  _ it  _ was also the desperate clench of his heart when he entertained the thought that the battered and bloody Cas in his dream was more than just the conjurings of his twisted imagination. 

The last thought was what finally brought him around. Dean relented with a bone deep sigh and sunk down a little in his seat, his shoulders rising up like defensive hackles. He kept his eyes squarely on the road, knowing in his heart that he'd clam up if he even so much as glanced at his brother's stupid compassionate face.

"Alright alright, fuck." He grumbled, "You're right, okay? There's stuff going on I ain't told you about."

Sam's patience seemed to have been rejuvenated by his brother's willingness to share so he sat attentive and quiet, allowing the older hunter to take his time as needed.

Dean had to mentally check himself before he rolled his eyes at what he was about to say. "Something  _ changed _ between me and Cas."

Sam inhaled sharply through his nose, trying to temper his surprise at the honest admission. This time Dean did roll his eyes.

"Not like that you perv!" Despite his personal confession about  _ that  _ particular subject, Dean was nowhere near ready to have  _ that  _ conversation with Sam. Instead he plowed forward, the words rushing out of him a bit too quickly while he ignored the heat creeping up his neck and over his face. "Our connection, bond, thing--Whatever. The point is that it's different."

"What do you mean 'different'?" Sam prompted when it seemed that Dean wasn't going to elaborate.

Dean's left knee began to bounce as his heart rate picked up. "Look. I don't know how to describe it, man. When I talked to Cas about it I sounded like a freaking crazy person."

"Cas didn’t think you were crazy." Sam inferred, "Or he'd have clued me into something not being right. Is it like when you were hearing things in Heaven?"

Choosing to ignore the fact that Cas and Sam apparently talked about his mental health behind his back, Dean replied, "Yeah, and no. Its…" he pressed his right palm into his chest and while Sam observed the gesture, he had the absurd sense that he was witnessing something he wasn't meant to. The feeling intensified to the point that he had to look away when he saw the way his brother's eyes softened before he spoke again. "Cas said my senses were getting crossed. But it's not just mine, it's both of us: mine and Cas's. What happened in Heaven...I could  _ hear _ and  _ feel _ his voice. His  _ angel _ voice; the one only prophets are supposed to be able to hear."

"What did it sound like?" Sam asked, unable to rein in his intrigue.

For a second he thought Dean was going to ignore the impulsive question, but his brother continued to surprise him.

"It’s been different every time; In Heaven it sounded like a lightning strike and it hit me like the kickback from a shotgun, then it was like a huge sheet of ice cracking and it felt like ice cold splinters under my skin _." _

Sam blinked owlishly but otherwise remained quiet.

“ When I went to find him in the chapel, it was like a string instrument, slow and soft and sad and I could  _ see  _ his grace. It was just hanging in the air like fog, but  _ shiny  _ like water in the sun. Then he was praying and it sounded like bells...” He paused to take a breath, his cheeks heating up again but now that he had started it seemed that he couldn’t stop, “Then in the chapel he...he touched me with his grace. Like full on no boundaries felt me up. It kinda freaked me out." The last sentence was more to himself than his brother, but Sam didn’t miss the quiet regret there.

"Why'd he do it?" Sam asked.

Dean shrugged vaguely, "He was just trying to figure it out like I was but it was...invasive. It felt like warm tingly fingers inside me."

Sam’s brows shot up in something like bewildered surprise just as Dean realized too late what he said and sputtered around an explanation, his face suddenly on fire. “I mean--that’s not what--Fuck.”

“I think I understand.” Sam affirmed as delicately as he was able only just managing to keep a straight face. “It’s kinda like when he heals us; but instead of the grace flowing through you like a current, it was, uh, poking around to examine.”

His voice wavered just slightly near the end earning him a scathing glare.

“Yeah sure.” Dean replied gruffly, dropping the subject despite the description not quite capturing the sensation. If he was really going to talk about this stuff, they needed to move past this fumble with foot-in-mouth or he might actually combust.

Taking mercy on his brother, Sam prompted, “Okay, so you guys obviously talked about it. You said Cas mentioned something about crossing senses, right? Did he explain why it was happening?”

“No.” Dean said curtly. “He was just as in the dark about the whole thing as I was. One second we were coasting along just like usual, and then the next I’m hearing and seeing freaky angel shit.” After a contemplative pause, he added, “But I think that Harut guy knows something about it.”

That caught Sam’s attention, “What do you mean? Did he say something?”

Dean shook his head, “No, nothing like that. It’s just...the whole time we were up there, he was watching us like he was  _ waiting _ for something to happen and then before I...before I freaked out in Hannah’s office, he looked at me like he  _ knew _ something was off…” He trailed off, uncertain in his own analysis, “I don’t know for sure, it’s just a gut feeling.”

“No, I had a feeling about him too.” Sam confirmed, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets and fingering the random contents within them as he contemplated all the possibilities. “He acted weird around Cas before we left too. After you guys left to look at the crime scene, I asked Hannah about him but all she gave me were these really vague answers, like she had a face value understanding of him and nothing else.”

“Awesome. He followed us around on her orders, and she didn't have a clue if he was on the up and up.”

Sam hummed his agreement before he jerked upright in a movement so sudden Dean was startled enough to swerve the car over the rumble strip on the road’s shoulder.

“What the hell Sam?!”

Sam’s hand, previously tucked into his pocket, shot up like a bolt of lightning and there sitting in his palm was the coin he had been given by Muriel before they entered Heaven.

“The coins.” Sam breathed, looking at his brother urgently. “Harut was the one who enchanted them! Do you still have yours?”

For a second Dean’s eyes just darted between his brother’s face and the road before he leaned back into his seat to fish around in his front jean pocket. After a few jerky movements, he finally produced the coin and extended it to his brother. Sam took it up and held the pair side by side to examine them, confirming his suspicions.

“I think I figured out what jump started your connection to Cas.” He stated slowly, his tone tight but even with forced calm. “Our coins are different.”

“What?!” Dean barked, “What the hell does that mean?”

Sam eased back into the seat, holding both coins between each thumb and forefinger. “They’re similar enough not to notice the visual differences at first glance which means it was intentional deception, but now that I have them both, yours is heavier. The design looks more artistic, like it was made with beauty in mind, but it’s weathered; older.  Mine is lighter, the details are stiffer, more straight cut, like it was made quickly and with little care. And yours…” He suddenly paused as though he was stunned by what he was about to reveal. “Yours is  _ warm. _ ”

“It’s been in my pocket--” Dean started but Sam cut him off with a hiss of pain between his teeth, dropping the coin where it bounced into the driver's footwell with a dull  _ thunk _ .

Sam shook his fingers as though he’d been burned, and it took one glance at his shiny red fingertips to prove that he _ actually had been.  _

“What the fuck?!” Dean seethed, more awake and alert than he had been in a few days. “What the hell just happened?”

"I have no idea!" Sam replied urgently, his voice tight as he examined his injured digits. "It was fine and then just went red hot!"

"Shit," Dean growled under his breath as he pulled over on the shoulder hoping the stupid thing hadn't already put any scorch marks on the floor.

As soon as the car came to a stop, Dean threw it into park and hopped out. He knelt in the gravel, ducking his head beneath the steering wheel to search for the coin while Sam twisted around to grab a water bottle out of the cooler in the back for his throbbing fingers. 

After a few seconds, Dean spotted the little bastard and reached out with his fingers protected by his shirt sleeve to grab it only...it wasn't hot at all. Brow furrowed, Dean stood up, cautiously pressing the bare fingers of his other hand against the metal. There was a vague warmth to it, but it was by no means hot enough to burn. 

"Okay this is just freaky." Dean intoned, looking up to meet his brother's eye across the bench seat. He grabbed the coin with his bare hand, brandishing it at Sam to show him. "No burning, it's barely even warm."

Sam glared incredulously at the offending coin as Dean climbed back in behind the wheel, keeping the coin held aloft in his open palm. For the first time since he'd received the damn thing, Dean really  _ looked _ at it. His eyes followed the unfamiliar lines and curves of the central symbol. It kinda looked like a little h with a cross and a crown on top and some weird squiggles on either side. He had no idea what it meant but he felt a little strange looking at it. 

There were symbols around the outer ring that caught his attention as well. At first he couldn't understand them either but after a second of focus they began to...wiggle. 

"What the--?" Dean muttered under his breath.

"What?" Sam asked distractedly while examining his fingers which now sported branded imprints of the lines in the symbol.

Dean blinked hard against the strange trembling of the symbols straining his vision, convinced he was seeing things but when he opened his eyes once again, the symbols had not only stilled, but they had morphed into legible letters. He blinked again in disbelief, then rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.

When his brother failed to answer, Sam glanced up to find him staring at the coin in his palm with an alarmed expression. 

"What's wrong?!" The younger hunter asked at once. 

"I can read it." Dean muttered completely at a loss. "The symbols were moving around and then they--poof! Letters!" He paused then spelled them aloud. "C-A-S-S-I-E-L." 

"Cassiel?" Sam pronounced it phonetically. "Are you sure you spelled it right?"

Dean's eyes darted up flippantly, "No Sam I'm not sure if the Enochian I can now somehow magically read is spelled right!"

Sam frowned thoughtfully, "Why would Cas's name be spelled like that? It's altered so slightly, just enough to sound off. What's the point?"

"Fuck if I know." Dean replied distractedly, still feeling strange looking at the coin before finally glancing at his brother. "Your hand okay?"

"Blistering but--Woah! Dean!"

Sam broke off with a startled expletive catching Dean half in his arms and half in his lap when the older hunter suddenly slumped to the side

"Dean!" Sam called to his brother urgently, hands flying over him to check his vitals. His pulse was an alarmingly faint flutter at his throat. His breathing was strained and shallow. Sam pulled him over as best he could only to see that a sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. His features were pulled into a tight pained expression 

Sam ran a hand over his face, trying to stay calm when he felt how hot the flushed skin had become. He shook him once but when Dean remained completely unresponsive he began to panic.

**"Dean!!!"**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact; the first scene where Cas wakes up hanging in chains and interacts with the angels and the creature is the very first scene I wrote for this fic way back when I was just messing around with possible case fic plot points. The story has changed and evolved exponentially since then but I am so glad I got to keep that original scene!


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